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COPYRIGHT DEPQSffc 



TSING HUA 
LECTURES ON ETHICS 



BY 



GREGORY DEXTER WALCOTT, Ph.D. 

Professor of Philosophy and Psychology 
Hamline University, St. Paul, Minn. 




BOSTON 
RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



Copyright, 1919, by Richard G. Badger 



All Rights Reserved 



9 j 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



AUG 15 1 9 19 



i.A529572 



TO THE MEMORY 

OP 

MARIAH DEXTER 

WHO DURING MANY YEARS 

WAS FOR ME 

IN 

LOCO PARENTIS 



PREFACE 

THE lectures of this little volume were delivered 
before the students of the High School of Tsing 
Hua College, Peking, China, during the fall of 1917, 
when I was temporarily professor of psychology and 
lecturer on ethics in that institution. Each was pre- 
sented without manuscript and then committed to 
writing while the matter was still fresh in mind. Very 
naturally, the original form of spoken discourse has 
been preserved. They represent the main view- 
points and the gist of arguments which have consti- 
tuted the content of a course in ethics at Hamline 
University during ten successive years. 

In making the final preparations for the press, I 
have tried to give credit wherever credit was due, as 
the various footnotes amply testify. It is not un- 
likely, however, that shades of thought suggested by 
lecture courses which I took during my own student 
days, and impressions gained from a rather wide 
reading in various fields have not been sufficiently ac- 
counted for. I hope, however, that I have committed 
no serious breach in the courtesy of acknowledg- 
ment. 

Geegoey Dextee Walcott. 

Hamline University, 
Jcmuary 28, 1919. 



CONTENTS 








LECTURE PAGE 


I The Point of View in Ethics . . .11 


II The Precise Field of Ethics 






31 


III Twofold Morality . 






52 


IV The Problem of Progress 






75 


V The Ethical Ideal .... 






100 


VI The Ethical Ideal (Concluded) . 






121 


VII The Realization of the Ideal 






145 


VIII Implications and Retrospect 






169 



TSING HUA LECTURES ON ETHICS 



THE POINT OP VIEW IN ETHICS 1 



CONFUCIUS, whose name adorns the annals of 
your people, is known throughout the civilized 
world as a teacher of ethics. I could not hope 
to improve upon some of his excellent and famous 
instruction, nor shall I attempt to do so. None the 
less, there are changes that take place in the world 
about us which make a review of ethical teaching ad- 
visable from time to time, and new discussions of 
these old themes can not prove harmful to the sub- 
ject, even though no new values may be added. It is 
in the attitude, then, of one who wishes to engage in 
a free, frank discussion of some of these vital ques- 
tions that I stand before you to-day. 

At the very outset, however, I need to indicate 
that I regard this particular lecture as a kind of 
introduction to the course as a whole. All that I 

1 This lecture was printed first in The THng Hua Journal, 
November, 1917. It is reproduced in practically its original 
form. 

11 



12 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

plan to do at this time is to survey the field, suggest 
various points of view, and provide a kind of guid- 
ing thread to aid us in following through all the rest 
of the lectures of this series. With this understand- 
ing of my purpose to-day, I will proceed. 

It is not easy for me to decide just where to be- 
gin. One could begin almost anywhere and ulti- 
mately present about the same material. I think, 
however, that it will be best to start with the mean- 
ing of the term "ethics" as it has figured histori- 
cally in the western world. That will put us into 
touch with the historical situation and afford a 
basis for any comparisons that may be necessary 
later. 

The term "ethics" entered the English language 
from the Greek. Among the Greeks, some twenty- 
five hundred years ago, there was the term ySos f 
plural ydta, which meant custom, traditional 
forms of behavior, manners, or social habits. It 
was so used rather generally in the time of Plato 
and Aristotle. But Cicero, who was very familiar 
with the Greek language and who did more than any 
other man to make the Greek philosophical ideas 
intelligible to his countrymen, used the Latin term 
mos, plural mores, as an exact equivalent for the 
Greek. Now, since the Latin language was especial- 
ly used by scholars throughout medieval times and 
until very recently, customary forms of behavior, 



The Point of View m Ethics 13 

or social habits, were presented in European thought 
by means of derivatives from the Latin mores. Con- 
sequently, such terms as morality, moral philosophy, 
etc., have been very prominent in English and other 
European languages. With the Renaissance, how- 
ever, there came a renewed knowledge of the Greek 
language and Greek thought, and in consequence this 
word "ethics" took its place in modern languages 
beside its Latin equivalent. 

Sooner or later, however, this association of the 
two terms raised the inevitable question as to whether 
they mean the same or are really different in their 
connotation. Professor Palmer of Harvard Uni- 
versity, who is himself a leading teacher in this field, 
has suggested that we should distinguish between 
the two by making ethics stand for the theoretical 
part of the whole field and morality for the applied 
or practical side. 2 This is, of course, an interesting 
way of dealing with the matter, but such a distinc- 
tion seems to me to be no more than that which is so 
frequently introduced into the field of any science, 
viz., the theoretical or pure science and the applied 
or practical science. This does not mean that there 
are two things, as two kinds of physics, a pure phys- 
ics and an applied physics, although because of the 
methods of treatment they do become somewhat dif- 
ferent. But in the field of ethics, while we do have to 
recognize a more theoretical side and an applied side, 
2 The Field of Ethics, p. 206. 



14 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

I do not think that we can always distinguish con- 
sistently between the terms "ethics" and "morality" 
in this way. Consequently, I shall use the two words 
rather indifferently throughout this course of lec- 
tures. Ethics, then, as the customs or habits of a 
people will be our general theme, but I shall not hesi- 
tate to use the term morality, whenever it is the 
more convenient, as its practical equivalent. 

Another matter of more or less historical impor- 
tance needs consideration next. It is pointed out by 
not a few writers that in the ancient Greek world 
the emphasis in ethical discussions was upon such 
concepts as "virtue" and the "good," indeed, the 
"highest good," while in the modern western world 
the tendency has been to stress "duty" and "per- 
fection." 3 Among the Greeks, Socrates was pre- 
eminently a teacher of ethics, but he conducted his 
discussions quite largely under the head of virtue. 
"Virtue is knowledge," was his famous fundamental 
position. If one would be virtuous, one should pos- 
sess oneself of knowledge, such knowledge, in part, as 
was at that time becoming rather common in Greece, 
but more particularly such knowledge as comes from 
self-examination and an appreciation of the con- 
cept. But aside from Socrates' peculiar emphasis, 
the Greek word, apery, meant manliness, the pos- 
session of a manly character, such as had been more 
or less evident in the great heroes of old. It meant 
» Seth, Ethical Principles, 6th Ed., p. 14f. 



The Point of View in Ethics 15 

practically the same for the Greeks as the corre- 
sponding term "virtus" did for the Romans. The 
first part of this word is the same as the Latin word 
for man, viz., "vir." Virtue for the old Romans 
meant manliness, and that was practically the mean- 
ing of the Greek term which has been translated into 
the English language as "virtue." 

But, as I have said, the Greeks did not merely dis- 
cuss virtue, but also the "good." What is that thing 
in life which we can regard as good, indeed, as the 
highest good? What is that for which it would be 
worth a man's time to strive throughout his entire 
life, or what is that superlatively good thing which 
this world or the next holds out to a man ? Of course 
it is not my purpose in this particular lecture to 
deal with such a discussion in detail. I am merely 
trying to show you what the motif of Greek ethical 
discussions was, that this may stand as a contrast to 
the modern emphasis, which, as I have stated, has 
been largely on duty and perfection. 

It is very easy to see, I think, why there was this 
change in emphasis, and also that there is a real 
connection between the two. The leaders in the 
Church, as that institution developed, gradually 
worked out what they thought was the highest good, 
and then they set that before the people to be real- 
ized in as full measure as possible. For the people, 
obedience, duty was at the front, and in the perform- 
ance of their duty their highest good would be real- 



16 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ized. There is, therefore, no great difference be- 
tween the ancient and the more modern way of deal- 
ing with this matter. In my discussions, however, 
I shall incline more to the Greek emphasis, although 
I think not to the utter neglect of the later historical 
development. 

Now, having proceeded thus far upon my way in 
an endeavor to indicate the general point of view 
from which I shall try to present ethics in this 
course, another question arises. Do I plan to treat 
the subject from the angle of some particular group? 
Hobhouse, a prominent English writer, very well 
points out that all ethics thus far in the world have 
been of the group variety. 4 If we fix out attention 
upon the Fiji Islanders and consider them apart from 
all influences upon them from any other part of the 
world, we shall have to admit that what is right for 
them is what the group thinks is right, and what is 
wrong for them is what the group thinks is wrong. 
At the present day in France, the thing that is super- 
latively right is for a man to leave his ordinary oc- 
cupation, shoulder his musket, and take his place 
in the trenches to repel the invader of his country, 
and the thing which is eternally wrong is for a man, 
who may be fit, to neglect or evade that duty. And 
so for all the countries of the world. The thing 
which is right, then, is that which the group deter- 

* Morals in Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. II, pp. 264-274, and 
passim. 



The Point of View m Ethics 17 

mines is right, and the thing which is wrong is what 
the group thinks is wrong. Still further, Hobhouse 
points out, and he is not alone in this thought, the 
world is gradually moving away from group moral- 
ity to a universal morality, to a condition of affairs 
when all the peoples of the world will have the same 
customs, think alike on ethical matters, and have 
about the same morality. There is, undoubtedly, 
much truth in this view, but what I wish to suggest 
is that even when such a oneness of culture should 
be realized there would still be group morality, al- 
though, of course, the group then would be the en- 
tire world. 

Now, I am certainly not planning to present eth- 
ics to you from the angle of any particular group, 
whether that of some nation as a whole, or of some 
small group within a given nation. Least of all 
would I be rash enough to attempt to present the 
subject to you from the view-point of your own great 
teacher, for I assume that you know more about his 
teaching than I do or perhaps ever shall. I shall, 
however, try to present a method of dealing with eth- 
ical problems which will be rather universal in its 
application, one which I think will prove helpful 
here in your own land or in any other land to which 
you may go, and which will also prove to be equally 
useful, if the time ever should come when all the races 
of the earth shall have about the same culture and 
think about the same on ethical topics. It is a 



18 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

method which has a universalism that functions from 
within out, rather than being a method which has a 
universalism in some sense foisted upon it from 
without. The development of this point, however, 
awaits the later lectures. 

Another matter that demands our attention in this 
introductory lecture is this : Shall the ethics which I 
propose to present be of the heteronomous sort or 
of the autonomous sort? I realize full well that 
these are rather formidable terms. Perhaps cold 
chills are now running down your spinal column at 
the mere mention of them. Let me hasten to explain 
them. I first ran upon these terms used in this way 
in a little book from the pen of Professor Wundt, the 
eminent psychologist and philosopher of Leipzig 
University. 5 The essential thought is this : A heter- 
onomous type of ethics is one in which the course of 
conduct is forced upon the individual by some exter- 
nal authority, while autonomous ethics is the kind ac- 
cording to which the individual thinks out the matter 
for himself. Let me present each of these types 
briefly, but sufficiently for the present purpose. 

There are at least two forms of the heteronomous 
type of ethics; one in the field of politics and the 
other in religion. When we look back into the his- 
tory of the race, we find systems of government ap- 
pearing, and in most of the older ones we find that 

*Einleitung in die PhUosofhie, 3te. Auflage, pp. 420-453. 



The Point of View in Ethics 19 

the law emanated from the head of the state. What 
is right is what the head determines to be right. It 
is for the people to obey. The laws on the statute 
books are placed there largely by the king, emperor, 
ruler, or whatever his official designation might hap- 
pen to be. Unless the people obey the royal man- 
dates, their lives are as nothing. Morality, under 
such conditions, consists in realizing the will of the 
ruler; the opinions and feelings of the individual 
count for naught. 

Very largely the same thing is true when we turn 
to the field of religion. I do not care to undertake at 
this time any lengthy discussion of this topic. This 
much, however, may be said. There have been many 
religions in which ethics has been fully as external 
as in the case of the state as a whole. Not infre- 
quently the machinery of religion has assumed the 
form of the state, and that form, too, which is ordi- 
narily spoken of as characteristic of an oriental 
despotism. The kind of ethics under such circum- 
stances partakes largely of the type already de- 
scribed in connection with the state. The approved 
course of conduct is imposed upon the individual 
from without. It is not for him to reason why, but 
rather for him to do, even though he should die. 
The will of the deity as interpreted by the earthly 
representative must be obeyed with absolute fidelity. 
There is no freedom for individual thought or initi- 



20 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics , 

ative. The life of the devotee must be lost in that 
of his divine master, as the life of the citizen must 
be the expression of the will of the earthly ruler. 

When, however, we turn to the autonomous type, 
we find the situation much different, although here, 
too, we may discern at least two varieties. The in- 
dividual's conduct is, indeed, the result of his own 
reflection, but he may examine carefully some system 
of the heteronomous type and decide that that is 
the best for him. He thus, in a sense, reenacts the 
measures provided for his guidance either in the 
state or in some religious body, and so he obeys in 
all respects, but his obedience is freely given. There 
is nothing irksome in it for him. In consequence of 
his reflection, he has come to identify his will with 
the will of the earthly ruler or of the deity. His 
tasks are in a sense self-imposed, and he moves freely 
within his self-prescribed limits. Not a few such in- 
dividuals are to be found to-day within many states 
more or less autocratic, and within religions of 
practically the same sort. 

With the other variety of the autonomous type, 
the situation is decidedly different. Here the indi- 
vidual's conduct is the expression of profound re- 
flection, and oftentimes the way he stakes out for 
himself does not meet the approval of the powers 
that be, whether political or religious. . None the 
less, such an individual feels that he must go that 
way, no matter what the consequences to himself 



The Point of View m Ethics £1 

may be. He thinks through his own problems, he 
legislates for himself, and holds himself rigidly 
to the course which his deepest convictions demand. 
This is the autonomous type par excellence. 

Now, it is very easy to see from this brief discus- 
sion that this distinction is the same as that between 
autocratic and democratic forms o? government in 
general. The deepest interpretation of the gigantic 
struggle going on in Europe to-day is that it is a 
desperate encounter between these two types of gov- 
ernment. Fundamentally that struggle is a political 
one. It is true that economic questions are very 
much involved with the issue, but the deepest analysis 
shows two diametrically opposed theories of the state. 
It is the same kind of conflict as that which took 
place in the religious world at the time of the Ger- 
man Reformation. If you ask me, then, from what 
angle I plan to present ethics to you, I need merely 
say that, coming as I do from the oldest of the ex- 
isting large republics, I could hardly do anything 
else than present the subject to you from the auton- 
omous angle. This type has had not a few repre- 
sentatives in the earlier history of European civili- 
zation, but that number has been steadily increasing 
as the centuries have brought what we call modern 
openness of mind, freedom of thought, and freedom 
of action. The autonomous type of ethics, then, is 
the type which I shall try to explain and emphasize 
throughout this all too brief course. 



&£ Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

There are, now, but a few things that I need to 
add to make my position fairly plain, and to give the 
course its proper setting. Am I intending to discuss 
ethics from the angle of philosophy, or do I regard 
the subject as a science? Still further, what relation 
does ethics have to sociology? These are questions 
which have been up for discussion many a time during 
the last quarter of a century, but especially promi- 
nent is the problem as to whether ethics is a science 
or not. Let us see what may be said briefly in con- 
nection with each of these topics. 

In regard to the first of these three questions, I 
may say that there has always been a close relation 
between philosophy and ethics. As I have already 
indicated, Socrates was profoundly ethical in his 
teaching, and the emphasis which he gave to moral 
philosophy remained as a fundamental motive with 
his great pupil, Plato. Plato, however, gave no 
specific work on ethics. His reflections are scat- 
tered through his dialogues, but there can be no ques- 
tion of the closeness of relation between his ethical 
views and his philosophical background. This is es- 
pecially true, too, of the teaching of Aristotle. He 
wrote a special treatise on ethics, but the connection 
between his ethical views and his fundamental meta- 
physical or philosophical background is very ap- 
parent. So, too, when we consider the men of the 
so-called ethical period of Greek philosophy. There 
is a decided relation between their metaphysical 



The Point of View m Ethics %3 

views and their ethics, although the metaphysical 
part was not especially attractive to them. The 
same is true when we foljow down the course of philo- 
sophic thought throughout the centuries of Euro- 
pean development. Each great philosopher has tend- 
ed to crown his system with a work on ethics. This 
was eminently true of Spinoza, whose one great work 
is entitled "Ethica," but in the early part of that 
work he gives the metaphysical background for his 
ethics. Equally true, too, is this in the case of 
Herbert Spencer, although the system he worked out 
is decidedly different from Spinoza's. In the preface 
of his "Data of Ethics," Spencer indicates that he 
regards his whole synthetic philosophy as but the 
background for his ethical views. Fearing that his 
health might not permit him to complete the entire 
scheme of thought as he had sketched it in his mind, 
he gave his ethical thought about midway among his 
publications, so that the world might at least realize 
what he had planned, even if he should be unable to 
carry through his plan in its entirety. Fortunately 
his health did ultimately enable him to complete his 
work. 

Now, from all this, it must be apparent that there 
is a close and vital connection between ethics and 
philosophy. The real question is, what kind of 
philosophy? There are philosophies and philos- 
ophies. I shall not risk wearying you with even a 
brief sketch of them. This much, however, let me 



24 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

say. There is a philosophy growing up in the west- 
ern world to-day which is by no means complete, but 
which none the less gives promise of great usefulness 
as it becomes better developed. 6 Between ethics, as 
I shall try to treat the subject, and this newer phil- 
osophy there will be an inner harmony, for this 
philosophy itself makes use of ethical material as an 
integral part of itself. To anticipate a bit, I will 
say that this philosophy is in close relation with the 
mass of material accumulated by all the various 
sciences during the last three or four hundred years. 
I could not, if I wished, develop ethics, as I view the 
subject, without feeling and perhaps indicating here 
and there the closeness of relation of the subject to 
this newer and to me very promising philosophy. 
Ultimately, I believe that this type of philosophy will 
be crowned with a better, a more adequate, and a 
more satisfying type of ethics than the western world 
up to the present has yet possessed. It is not my 
purpose, however, to go into this matter in detail. 
It must suffice for me to state what I feel is the 
proper relation between these two subjects and pass 
on. 

But what shall I say of ethics and science? I have 
already rather definitely indicated my position by 
what I have just said about this newer philosophy. 
It is interesting for me to note here, too, the changes 
of views within this field. When I was a student in 

•It is the body of rather realistic-scientific thought that 
I refer to here. 



The Point of View in Ethics 25 

college, as you are now, an eminent writer on ethics, 
in the first edition of his work, insisted that ethics 
must be regarded strictly as a part of philosophy. 7 
In a later edition of this same work, however, he 
argues vigorously that ethics must be regarded as a 
science. Evidently new light had dawned upon him. 
In my own case, beginning with a rather strong op- 
position to ethics as a part of philosophy, I have be- 
come convinced that there is a close relation, but 
depending upon the kind of philosophy. 

Now, in any science, analysis is a fundamental 
method of procedure. This, I take it, can and must 
be applied to the field of ethics. In other sciences, 
some unit is reached as the result of such analysis. 
In physics the fundamental unit is the molecule, 
while in the older chemistry the unit is the atom; in 
physical-chemistry the unit is the electron, while in 
biology the unit is the cell, and in neurology the neu- 
rone is the smallest and simplest unit within that 
particular field. So in ethics, rigorous analysis 
yields a unit, viz., the moral idea or ideal. The field 
is the whole range of human history. What exactly 
have been the moral ideas entertained by men in dif- 
ferent periods of the world's history, and how have 
they changed from age to age? What, too, are the 
principles underlying such changes? How do the 
units become broken up, how do old ideas give way to 

T Seth, A Study of Ethical Principles, p. 3. Cf. 8th Ed. p. 3, 
and passim. 



£6 / Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

the new, how do old and new coalesce into new pro- 
grams for action? These are only a few of the ques- 
tions one has to consider as one seeks to develop 
ethics in a scientific manner. The task is undoubted- 
ly a more difficult one than in some other fields, but 
the difficulty of the undertaking is no legitimate 
argument against the possibility of attaining ulti- 
mately a fairly well developed science which may be 
ranged by the side of other sciences, as psychology, 
which deal with the various aspects of human mental 
phenomena. Ethics as a science, then, I am inclined 
to insist upon. 

There are, however, various objections which are 
frequently urged against such a program. I can 
take time for only two of these. It is said that it is 
impossible to use experiment in such a field, and fur- 
ther that one could not make predictions. These are 
regarded in some quarters as fatal objections. But 
let us see. 

There is no science which is more generally re- 
garded as such, and which is regarded as more exact 
than astronomy, but certainly one can not experi- 
ment in a strict sense in that field. To experiment, 
we have to control the conditions. In the field of as- 
tronomy, however, we can not exercise such control. 
Observations may be made under certain special 
conditions which nature herself provides, but that is 
far different from a nice experiment in the chemical 
laboratory where all the elements are well known and 



The Point of View m Ethics VI 

all the conditions are under careful control. Now, 
of course, it would hardly be permissible to experi- 
ment in some fields of ethics, but actually the race has 
experimented with almost all forms of conduct, and 
all that we have to do is to ransack history to see 
what the conditions were and how the experiment 
turned out. President Schurman of Cornell Uni- 
versity has said that the only way in which ethics can 
be made scientific is to make the subject historical. 8 
Here is a recognition of this same experiment field. 
Then, too, the various nations are experimenting 
all the time. Some measure is up for discussion. 
There are opinions both adverse and favorable which 
are expressed freely. Ultimately the measure is en- 
acted into law. If it does not prove to be of value to 
the community, it is sooner or later repealed and 
some other measure substituted for it. This is real 
experimentation. 

So, too, the objection to ethics as a science on the 
ground that one can not make predictions is not 
particularly strong. All predictions, even in the 
most exact sciences, are based on the assumption that 
conditions in the future will be as in the past. We 
say that such or such an event will occur, if all the 
conditions of the past are repeated. As a matter of 
fact, conditions never are twice alike in every re- 
spect. There is a sufficient likeness, however, to 
warrant our expecting in a given case approximately 

8 The Ethical Import of Darwinism, p. 31. 



28 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

the same results as in the past. May we not take the 
same attitude in ethics? It seems to be true that at 
many times and in many places in the past, if a man 
violated the sanctity of another man's home, his life 
paid the penalty. We may predict exactly the same 
thing to-day, in so far as conditions happen to be 
the same. It is of course true, that many condi- 
tions of modern life are different from what they 
were many centuries ago. There are many and 
varied legal methods of dealing with such cases and 
there are many and varied ideas entertained in our 
complex modern societies. But, I repeat, where the 
conditions to-day are about what they were several 
centuries ago, and where the parties concerned are 
on about the same plane of social development as in 
the past, we may predict with a high degree of cer- 
tainty what the results will be in such matters when 
the causes are the same as in the past. No serious 
objection, then, may be advanced against ethics as 
a science on the score that predictions can not be 
made. The basis for making predictions in this 
field is the same as in other fields. 

And now we come to the last question which I have 
raised with reference to the angle from which I pro- 
pose to discuss ethics. Does the subject have any 
vital relation to sociology? I need not stop long in 
answering this query. There is no subject in our 
modern field of thought that has a closer relation 
to all things human than sociology has. There is 



The Point of View m Ethics 29 

no human activity which this subject does not touch 
in some way more or less completely. Then, too, 
sociology is in many respects akin to that new type 
of philosophy toward which I have already indicated 
that I am partial. There is hardly a science which 
does not contribute to a greater or less extent to 
make sociology what it is. This subject, too, has at 
times in the past been called the philosophy of his- 
tory. With the close relation to history which I 
have already indicated that ethics sustains, it is un- 
avoidable that it should have a very close and a very 
definite relation to sociology. What that relation is, 
however, will be presented in future lectures, espe- 
cially the one to be given two weeks from to-day. 

And now my surveying of the field is complete for 
to-day. I have indicated that the term "ethics" 
meant originally customs, the habits of a people, and 
that it means practically the same as the term "mor- 
ality"; I have also suggested that I shall lay more 
stress upon the old Greek motif of the "good" and 
"virtue," rather than upon "duty" and "perfection," 
although the latter will not be entirely overlooked. 
Then, too, I have suggested that I do not plan to 
present a purely group morality, although I recog- 
nize the group as the basis of ethical requirements. 
My aim will be to show how a method of dealing 
with ethical problems may be outlined which would 
function in any group, or in the world as a whole 
when the population and culture become more nearly 



80 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

homogeneous than they are at present, and I shall 
emphasize, too, an autonomous rather than a hetero- 
nomous type of ethics. I hold, too, that ethics has 
a fundamental relation to philosophy, and I shall 
treat the subject from the angle of a rather new 
kind of philosophy which is developing in America 
and to some extent in Europe; I also regard ethics 
as a science and as closely connected with sociology. 
I realize full well that where there are so many 
possible points of view and so many fields of thought 
to take into consideration, it will be exceedingly diffi- 
cult to thread a perfectly consistent course. None 
the less, as a celebrated French writer has said, "Je 
prend mon bien, oii je le trouve," I take my good, 
wherever I find it. So I plan to make use in various 
ways of all these fields that I have so hastily touched 
upon to-day, and I shall attempt to fuse all that I 
select from them into something which shall be of 
value for you. 



n 



THE PRECISE FIELD OF ETHICS 

IN my lecture two weeks ago, I suggested, more or 
less completely, the various angles from which 
ethics may be viewed, and indicated, too, rather in- 
cidentally, the numerous fields from which I shall 
appropriate material, to a greater or less extent, for 
the succeeding lectures of this series. I also pointed 
out the particular aspects of the subject that I am 
inclined to stress. My task to-day is to trace ethics 
to its lair. Let us see if we can reach this goal. 

Professor Palmer of Harvard University, to whom 
I referred in the introductory lecture, published a 
little book several years ago under the title of "The 
Field of Ethics." In this book, the author compares 
ethics with philosophy, with science, with law, with 
religion, and with several other subjects, discusses 
their likenesses and differences, and in this way reach- 
es what he regards as the special field of ethics. I do 
not care to repeat what Professor Palmer has so 
well done. None the less, for our special purpose, it 
is necessary to find out, if we can, just those par- 
ticular activities with which ethics is primarily con- 

31 



32 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

cerned. This, I think I can do most quickly, if I 
make use of some generalizations which are current 
among philosophers and sociologists, and which, at 
any rate, will give us a valuable bird's eye view and 
show at once where such activities are generally cata- 
logued. 

Professor Hoffding of the University of Copen- 
hagen, whom Professor James has called "one of the 
most learned of living philosophers," 1 has pointed 
out that all the problems, with which philosophers 
have wrestled for more than twenty-five hundred 
years, can be brought under four main heads, viz., 
the Problem of Knowledge, the Problem of Being, the 
Problem of Worth, and the Problem of Conscious- 
ness. It is not my purpose, of course, to deal with 
these problems in detail, but such a grouping as this 
gives us a survey of the entire field, and the third 
group shows us our special province, for, as Profes- 
sor Hoffding proceeds to explain, the topic "worth" 
includes both ethics and religion. Still further, this 
term "worth" is equivalent to the term "value" which 
stands in the center of ethical discussions to-day, 
and when we analyze carefully we find that value 
points to the field of purpose, and this, in turn, lands 
us at once in the midst of teleology, where many of 
the severest intellectual battles of the past, in phil- 
osophy, theology, and science have been waged with 

1 Hoffding, The Problems of Philosophy, Preface. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 33 

varying and oftentimes inconclusive results. 2 I can 
not, of course, take the time for an elaborate dis- 
cussion of this matter, but I must say a word or two 
with reference to it. 

Back among the Greeks, Democritus, who was one 
of the great systematizers of Greek thought, worked 
out his system with a fundamental emphasis upon a 
purposeless universe. When we analyze with proper 
care, he maintained, we reach the conclusion that the 
world is as it is because of a kind of necessity, a 
blind unthinking law, a kind of fate. We do not 
find purpose as an integral, fundamental principle. 
Plato and Aristotle, on the other hand, insisted that 
the deepest interpretation of the world which thought 
reveals is that purpose is inextricably interwoven 
with the nature of things. Account for it as we may, 
we may not avoid the concept of purpose in our ef- 
forts to explain the origin and succession of events 
in the world, both human and otherwise. With the 
development of the Church, it was rather natural 
that this purposeful interpretation should have been 
in the foreground, and this is what we find, for the 
most part, throughout medieval Europe. But with 
the reintroduction of the fundamental teaching of 
Democritus early in the seventeenth century, very 
naturally a purposeless universe came to the front 
again for not a little discussion. Still further, since 
the development of the sciences during the last three 

9 Cooley, The Principles of Science, p. 163. 



64 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

hundred years has been in rather close relation to 
the fundamental viewpoint of Democritus, it is not 
surprising that science has not been very hospitable 
toward the concept of purpose. About two years 
ago, however, Professor Warren of Princeton Uni- 
versity published an extended article in one of the 
philosophical journals upon this very matter. 8 He 
maintained in substance that we have a classical 
treatment of the concept of causation in the work of 
David Hume, but that purpose has never had such an 
exhaustive examination. This, however, Professor 
Warren attempts, and reaches the conclusion that 
while science takes the teaching of Hume in his de- 
velopment of the concept of causality, the concept of 
purpose, as it has generally been used, has no legiti- 
mate place within the field of science. This, as is 
quite evident from what I said in the former lecture, 
would put us into a kind of dilemma, if the older in- 
terpretation of purpose were the only one. For, as 
I pointed out there, I am inclined to regard ethics as 
a science, and to be estopped from the use of the 
concept of purpose would be to terminate my course 
of lectures before I had fairly begun. Happily, how- 
ever, the writer referred to has eliminated from the 
concept of purpose its old-time "anthropomorphic 
accretions" and indicates that in its reduced con- 
notation it may well be employed for certain scien- 

9 Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, 
Vol. XIII, pp. 5-26, 57-73. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 35 

tific aims. Since, too, this transformation of the 
term is, in general, such as I have been accustomed to 
make use of, I can all the more readily enlist it in 
conjunction with our present task. 

I may also add that we, at this time, are not par- 
ticularly concerned with the reasons which have led 
Professor Warren to make the changes which he has 
deemed necessary in the concept of purpose. His 
discussion involves not a little of metaphysics, and 
we wisely hold ourselves aloof from that subject as 
much as possible at present. Science restricts itself 
to rather narrow limits, although it does have its 
metaphysical ground principles. We are not so much 
interested just now in the metaphysical aspects of 
ethics, or in an extended discussion of the term pur- 
pose, important though they may be in themselves, as 
we are in the data of ethics and the possibility of 
something like a scientific treatment. We need first 
to get our material and to sift it with as great care 
as possible. Whatever metaphysical implications 
there may be in the subject or in some of the terms 
tentatively used can be threshed out then. Conse- 
quently, when we scrutinize the field of behavior with- 
in limits that are not too far apart, and use the 
term divested of some of its earlier meanings, we find 
what can very well be called purpose. Let us see. 

The little fishes swimming hither and thither within 
their watery deep make continual use of their mouths. 
Thus they aerate their system and get their neces- 



86 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

sary food supply. How much consciousness may be 
involved in the process, I will not attempt to say. 
None the less there is very evidently a purpose which 
is subserved by their almost ceaseless activities. The 
fox and the wolf pounce upon their unsuspecting 
victims, while the lion and the bear stalk their prey 
each in its own way. So, too, human beings have 
their purposes, their ends which they seek in a va- 
riety of ways. I may not say, perhaps, that the 
universe is purposeful through and through. 4 Our 
knowledge is as yet too meager for such an unequiv- 
ocal assertion. When we consider the boundless 
stretches of space about us and the comparatively 
few things which we feel that we know, our knowledge 
seems to be far too limited for us to say that the 
universe is purposeful in its limitless extent. To 
make such an assertion, would be to go considerably 
beyond our evidence. But when we consider human 
activities and the activities of the lower orders of 
life, something which we can call purpose is very evi- 
dent, and to that extent we may say that the universe 
is purposeful. We ourselves are a part of the uni- 
4 The article by Professor Warren which I have referred 
to, I read only in part when it first appeared. When I went 
to China and prepared this lecture, the article was not accessi- 
ble to me, so that I depended entirely upon my memory of 
what little I had read. Upon returning to America, I read 
the entire discussion and found myself more fully in agree- 
ment with it than I had supposed. Several slight changes had 
to be made in a couple of paragraphs, but this particular para- 
graph remains as it was originally presented. 



The Precise Field of EtUcs 37 

verse, and to the extent that we have purposes, may 
we say that the universe itself has purpose in it. 

Here, then, is the result of this part of our in- 
vestigation. Problems of worth are problems with 
which the philosophers deal, and problems of worth 
are problems of value, and these problems consist in 
the proper discrimination among purposeful activi- 
ties. The field of purposeful activity, then, is the 
field of ethics from the point of view of the philoso- 
phers. But, as I have indicated, the sociologists 
have generalizations which are almost as wide-rang- 
ing as those of the philosophers. If we turn to them, 
we may find some additional light thrown upon our 
problem as a whole. 

One such generalization is rather old and will not 
be of so much service to us as one that I shall pre- 
sent later. Since, however, it gives us a fine, sweep- 
ing view of the field, I think that it is a good one to 
give in connection with the philosophical one just pre- 
sented. It will be of value, also, in later discussions. 
According to not a few sociologists, all the activities 
of men may be put into four groups. There are the 
economic activities, the political activities, the moral 
and religious activities, and the cultural activities. 
These make provision for the entire range of human 
activities, for the term "cultural" includes every- 
thing that would not naturally come under the other 
three heads. It is used, therefore, not in that fine 
Bostonese sense with its peculiar intonation, but 



38 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

rather as writers on primitive society use the word 
"culture." With them it means the entire range of 
human activities, while here it means the same minus 
the other three sets of activities. Thus we see that 
the moral activities are dealt with by sociologists in 
close relation with the religious, and that they have a 
definite place for consideration among the other 
various activities. But, as I have indicated, such a 
grouping does not help us very much when we desire 
to determine what the nature of the ethical activities 
is. We learn simply that they are a part of the total 
human activities. We, however, desire to learn more, 
and this desire will be met, I think, by using another 
way of dealing with society, as I suggested a moment 
ago. 

In his book on "Inductive Sociology," Professor 
Giddings of Columbia University has suggested that, 
if we wish to know any community at all adequately, 
there are four things which we need especially to con- 
sider, viz., the "social population," the "social mind," 
the "social organization," and the "social welfare." 5 
The interpretation to be placed upon each of these 
is as follows: By the social population is meant the 
general physical characteristics of a people in any 
community or country. If we want to know as much 
as possible about any given people, we need to be^ 

6 These main topics I have taken from the source indicated, 
but I have developed them in my own way, although influenced, 
of course, by the writer mentioned. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 89 

gin with a study of their physical selves. This might 
not be of so great importance in China, where, as I 
understand, in some communities at least, the popu- 
lation is very homogeneous, but in America, where 
the population is composed of people from almost all 
parts of the world, such a study is of prime impor- 
tance. And, indeed, I believe that even in some of the 
especially homogeneous parts of China, if we should 
find out the stature of the people, the size and shape 
of their heads, their facial angles, and various other 
physical characteristics, we should know that popu- 
lation far better than it is generally known to-day. 
Then, too, by the social mind, in any community, no 
mind independent of the individual minds is meant, 
although some writers seem to imply something of 
that sort, but the common stock of ideas, the ways 
the people of that community have of reacting to 
their environment, their beliefs, their thought habits, 
and general outlook upon the world. This surely is 
of importance, if we would know a people through 
and through. Then, further, there is the social or- 
ganization, for every community tends to have some 
form of government, and in addition there are usual- 
ly business organizations, chambers of commerce, and 
enterprises of a similar nature too numerous to men- 
tion, all of which show us the people banded together 
in one form or another to accomplish some definite 
purpose ; and, lastly, there is the social welfare to be 
considered, for which all the various organizations to 



40 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

a greater or less extent really exist. There are, also, 
the varying amounts of wealth possessed by different 
groups within the community. How large a part of 
the people, we would have to ask, constitutes the so- 
called wealthy class, how many make up the fairly 
well-to-do middle class, and how many are living in 
poverty and squalor? What about schools, hospi- 
tals, foundling asylums, and various sanitary under- 
takings, all of which point directly to a considera- 
tion of the welfare of the community? Whenever 
we might make such a careful study of any commun- 
ity as this brief outline implies, we could then say 
that we knew that community very thoroughly. 

Now, very naturally, what we call ethics or moral- 
ity finds a place under this last head, and it is here 
that Professor Giddings definitely places the ethical 
activities of a community, and I think that it must 
be apparent to all that such treatment throws a flood 
of light upon our problem. Not only do we have here 
an all-inclusive survey of human activities, includ- 
ing the moral, but also a definite characterization of 
those moral activities so that they are qualitatively 
discriminated from other activities. 

If we combine, now, the results of these two major 
investigations, the philosophical and the sociological, 
we shall find that we are not far from the special 
field of ethics. From the philosophical generaliza- 
tion, we found that ethics has to do with purposive 
activity, while from the sociological angle we have 



The Precise Field of E tides 41 

found that they are those activities which are par- 
ticularly concerned with social welfare. If we were 
to make a definition at this point, it would run about 
as follows: Ethics has to do with consciously pur- 
posive activities which aim at social welfare; they 
are those activities in any community which are defi- 
nitely aimed at the welfare of that group. 

From all this discussion, it must be evident that 
what we are especially concerned with in this field 
are those acts which are commonly called altruistic. 
They are the more self-sacrificing acts, the so-called 
unselfish relations which people in any community 
have to a greater or less extent toward one another. 
This is not a new thing, as I intimated at the be- 
ginning of the lecture two weeks ago, but something 
rather old, and the question which naturally arises 
here is as to whether such activities are forced upon 
a community from outside itself, or whether they are 
an integral, a vital part of the life of any community, 
and where we may look for their origin. It is to a 
consideration of this problem that we must turn 
next. 

The length of time during which the human race 
has been here upon this earth has been variously esti- 
mated. These estimates run all the way from a few 
thousand years to one hundred thousand, five hun- 
dred thousand, or even a million and a half years or 
more. During all this long stretch of time, there 
have been two fundamental impulses playing their 



42 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

respective parts, viz., the desire for food and the re- 
lations of the sexes to each other. With the first of 
these, I doubt if we shall find anything essentially 
altruistic. This is a tyrannous impulse. Self-pres- 
ervation is frequently styled the first law of life. It 
is of course true that there are many considerations 
coming from the midst of modern society which oper- 
ate to modify this impulse, but when taken by itself, 
as we must take it in such an investigation as this, 
we can not find in it much that is altruistic. When 
a man has reached his last mouthful of meat, his last 
crust of bread, and feels the pangs of hunger strong 
within him, he is not apt to give evidence of much 
altruism. Still further, the way such cases are 
handled in modern courts of law points to a recog- 
nition of the tyranny of this impulse as a more or 
less sufficient excuse in even rather violent misde- 
meanors. In a New York City paper several years 
ago, I read of a man who threw a couple of Indian 
clubs through the plate glass windows of the dining- 
room of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel to the consterna- 
tion of the men and women who were dining there. 
Of course the man was arrested and when brought 
before the judge the next morning the following 
story was elicited from him: He had been out of 
work for several weeks, his wife and children were 
starving, and he himself had had nothing to eat for 
several days. Since he had some skill in the use of 
Indian clubs, he had gone to a few of the cafes on the 



The Precise Field of Ethics 43 

West Side to get what pennies he could by giving 
exhibitions with his clubs. He had had but little 
success, and on his way home he passed this hotel, 
and there the sight of food and the wealth and good 
cheer of the diners was too much for him. He lost 
his head and hurled his clubs through the windows. 
The judge, because of the legal requirements, im- 
posed a light sentence upon the man, but at the same 
time instructed a court official, as the prisoner was 
being led away to a cell, to take him a steaming hot 
meal. I have also gathered a number of similar in- 
stances, where because of hunger men have gone coun- 
ter to ordinary civilized behavior and have either 
not been punished at all, or have received the mini- 
mum penalty. In all such cases, it is evident that 
hunger by itself knows no laws, and the presiding 
legal officials regard human life as of more impor- 
tance than mere things. From this impulse, then, I 
doubt if we can find the source of altruism. What 
can we say with reference to the other impulse re- 
garded as fundamental? 

The relations between men and women from very 
early times have been exceedingly complex. There 
has been much selfishness, brutality, and mere animal- 
ism characterizing individual members of both groups 
into which the race is divided by sex, but here, too, 
not a little activity of another sort has been in evi- 
dence. When we see, as has often happened, a 
mother sacrificing herself for her child, and the fath- 



44 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

er sacrificing himself for wife or child or both, we 
find ourselves in the presence of another principle 
which has come to be known as altruism. 6 Indeed, 
we are then at the very headwaters of such activity. 
Of course, we have to consider that there have been 
many variations in this field. The family has not 
always been constituted in the simple way suggested 
here, nor have the relations within the family always 
been ideal, but when we reflect upon the matter 
throughout the world and throughout the almost 
endless periods of history, this field seems to afford 
the best environment for the genesis and development 
of what we to-day call altruism. 

There is also another principle, which seems to me 
to be a secondary one, but which has been emphasized 
by Kropotkin, the Russian writer, viz., coopera- 
tion. 7 This undoubtedly has played a large part in 
the development of altruism. For big undertakings 
in primitive times men had to join with one another. 
This is very evident in connection with the commun- 
ity life in the late Stone Age in England and on the 
Continent, and the same was true in the valleys of the 
Nile and of the Euphrates. 8 When man joined with 
man in erecting some great stone structure or in 
building a river embankment, he was not working 
simply for his own welfare. Undoubtedly his own 

6 Cf . McDougall, Social Psychology, pp. 76, 268-269. 

7 Mutual Aid. 

•Breasted, Ancient Times; A History of the Early World, 
p. 27; Moore, History of Religions, p. 145. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 45 

welfare was wrapped up with the welfare of the com- 
munity, but as he toiled along with his fellows there 
was a common end, a social aim that was bigger than 
what the individual could accomplish for himself. As 
a subsidiary principle, then, cooperation has played 
an important part in the development of social life 
and of altruistic activities. 

It is thus evident, I think, that altruism is not 
something foisted upon a community from outside 
itself, but instead something without which a com- 
munity could not exist. What would a community 
be like, if we can imagine such a group for but a 
moment, in which nobody ever did anything for any- 
body else? Each individual, we will say, is working 
first, last, and all the time simply for himself. How 
could such a community hold together? Where 
would be the chemical affinity, so to speak, the social 
bond, the cement by which these units could be bound 
together into a social whole? It is really unthink- 
able. Altruism, then, is a native principle. It is not 
something injected into society from some outside 
source, but it is the sine qua non for any society. 
Without it, there would be no society at all. 

Here, then, we are very near the precise field of 
ethics. Purposive activity aiming at social welfare 
is the general field, but one further qualification must 
be added. Unless there is a definite, conscious aim on 
the part of the individual for the social welfare, the 
quality of the social act is not so high. That is, 



46 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

over and above the outcome of definite acts which do 
make for social welfare, there must be the conscious 
willing on the part of the actor, or else the act itself 
falls below par. Undoubtedly it is exceedingly diffi- 
cult to get at a man's motives, and yet to disregard 
motives would be to ignore the teaching of history. 

Hobhouse of the University of London, in his work 
on "Morals in Evolution," has taken several sets of 
moral ideas and has traced them from the earliest 
periods of human history down to the present. One 
of these sets of moral ideas is concerned with "law 
and justice." It is very evident, as he presents the 
matter, that in primitive society the motive of an act 
was not considered. The all important thing was to 
find the perpetrator of an act. For example, in the 
field of homicide, the motive of the guilty man was 
not introduced into the consideration of the crime. 
If A killed B, then A's life was forfeit. Even if men 
were working together hewing wood and one man's 
ax flew off the handle and killed his companion, there 
was no discussion as to whether the man's motives 
were murderous or not. He actually committed the 
deed, therefore his life must pay the penalty. But 
with the changing conditions in human society 
which we interpret as progress there came a time 
when just such distinctions were made. Even as 
early as the time of Draco, in Greece, different courts 
for different kinds of homicide were established. 9 
9 Botsford, A History of Greece, p. 47. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 47 

There were courts for cold-blooded, deliberate mur- 
der, and also other courts for accidental homicide, 
and for what perhaps we may call justifiable homi- 
cide. The same distinctions are made to-day in west- 
ern civilized society. From a total disregard of the 
motive, society has turned to the closest scrutiny of 
motives and to a careful adjustment of penalties to 
correspond to the degree of guilt and individual re- 
sponsibility. Not to do this in our consideration of 
ethical problems would be to disregard the deepest 
consciousness of the race as it has sought to estab- 
lish even-handed justice within its borders. 

It is true that oftentimes, because of the complex- 
ity of modern society and the intricacies of legal de- 
velopment, we become impatient of the results ob- 
tained. Not infrequently, the confessed wrong-doer 
escapes the expected requital for his misdeeds, be- 
cause of some technicality of the law. There is a 
doubt of some sort or an apparent unfairness in the 
procedure, or a question raised as to the sanity of 
the accused man, and in consequence the confessed 
culprit goes scot-free, or passes the remainder of his 
days in some luxurious private or semi-private insti- 
tution for the insane. At such times there is a ten- 
dency to decry the search for motives and to demand 
a rougher, ruder method of dealing with the situa- 
tion. The same is true in cases of mob rule or mob 
law, as it is called. Not a little injustice has been 
done in this way. But in all such cases, we should 



48 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

try to hold ourselves true to the development of the 
race consciousness. Not to seek for motives and then 
to abide by the results, is to put ourselves on the 
plane of primitive savages ; to seek the motive of an 
act is to align ourselves with the highest and best 
that has been thought and achieved in this field. 

But what shall we say, then, in the case of acts that 
apparently make for social welfare, although we do 
not know what the motive was ? We shall need to re- 
gard them temporarily as ethical, and indeed as per- 
manently ethical, so far as they constitute a valu- 
able element in society, but the value of the act, so 
far as the actor is concerned, varies with the motive. 
If, for example, a wealthy man gives a large public 
building to the city in which he lives, that is of value 
to the community, and credit to that extent will be 
freely extended to the donor. If, however, the gift 
was made to win public favor and so prevent any in- 
vestigation as to the methods by which the wealth 
was obtained, then the ethical value of the gift falls 
below par, if the motive ever becomes known. So, 
too, a group within a given community, as Tammany 
Hall in New York City, may be never so altruistic 
within its own limits, illustrating pure group moral- 
ity, but if, as in this case, such altruistic activities 
are designed primarily to fasten the clutch of that 
organization upon the treasure of that city, the seem- 
ing altruism is not of a strictly ethical sort. It is 
more nearly real selfishness and so unethical. 



The Precise Field of Ethics 49 

But let me suggest here, too, that the ordinary 
distinction between selfish and unselfish does not hold 
absolutely. Paradoxical as it may seem to be, if one 
would be thoroughly selfish in the ordinary sense, he 
must be altruistic, and to be altruistic in a large 
way, one must be apparently at any rate selfish. 
If a man were strictly selfish, he would be working 
first, last, and all the time for his own welfare. But 
even to gain his selfish ends he would have to be more 
or less apparently altruistic. For to disregard ab- 
solutely the claims of others upon himself would lead 
ultimately to social ostracism and so to the non-reali- 
zation of his desired good. On the other hand, one 
might be consumed with the desire to serve one's fel- 
lowmen, so much so, indeed, that one would neglect 
all preparatory training. To follow such a course, 
however, would make it impossible for the individual 
to contribute his greatest service. Only as he sub- 
mits himself to a long course of training, for ten or 
fifteen years it might be, during which time he would 
appear to the superficial observer to be extremely 
selfish, could he render his fullest and richest service 
to the community or country to which he happened 
to belong. Selfishness and unselfishness are not mu- 
tually exclusive terms ; they are paradoxically com- 
plementary. But in the use of either to characterize 
an individual, we would need to know the motive ; only 
so could we judge accurately of the ethical value of 
an act or series of acts. 



50 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

There is one further question that arises in this 
connection. Suppose a man should spend his entire 
life endeavoring to benefit his fellowmen, but in the 
end should fail of ever having done a thing which 
could be rated as real social service. Could we call 
such a man ethical? In view of the discussion thus 
far, I should be compelled to call him ethical, but I 
would immediately raise a question as to his mental 
ability. I do not think that it is at all probable that 
a normal man who aimed at social welfare would be 
utterly defeated in the attempt. The chances are 
that his successes would rather outweigh his failures. 

And so we have come to the end of our discussions 
for to-day. It is sometimes said that a man's religion 
consists in his relation to his god, while his ethics 
consists in his relations to his fellows. This last 
statement seems to me to be too broad. It makes 
ethics synonymous with sociology. We may indeed 
say that everything that is ethical is social, although 
we may not say that everything that is social is 
ethical. As we have seen, the ethical finds its place 
in the discussions of the philosopher under the head 
of worth which means purposeful activity, while 
with the sociologist the same activities are provided 
for under the head of social welfare. But even so, if 
we would properly appreciate the teachings of his- 
tory, we must search out the motives of acts so far 
as possible. Consciously purposive activity, then, 
aimed at social welware on the whole and in the long 



The Precise Field of Ethics 51 

run is what we can call ethical in the midst of com- 
plex human society. It is not something foreign to 
society, something imposed upon society from with- 
out, but rather something which is fundamental, in- 
deed, vital. Society could not exist without it. 

At our next hour, two weeks from to-day, I shall 
try to show how these various discussions may be ap- 
plied by each of you to the particular community 
in which you happen to live, and so give a practical 
turn to it all. 



Ill 



TWOFOLD MORALITY 



IN the lecture two weeks ago, I said that ethics 
is concerned especially with consciously purposive 
activities which aim at social welfare. This indicates, 
as it seems to me, the precise field of ethics. There 
is, however, a broader definition which I sometimes 
find it convenient to use, but which I could not pre- 
sent at the last hour without perhaps dividing your 
attention too much. It includes the more precise 
definition, and so can not be regarded as in any sense 
out of harmony with what I said on the earlier oc- 
casion. Since I shall need to make use of it to a 
limited extent in the present lecture and possibly in 
later lectures, I will present it briefly now. 

From this broader point of view, then, ethics may 
be said to be the life of a man as he seeks to realize 
some ideal, or, to give the matter a somewhat more 
scientific cast, we may say that ethics is the science 
which results from the application of the scientific 
method to the lives of men as they have sought to 
realize ideals. At once, perhaps, you may feel in- 
clined to object. Suppose there were a robber chief- 
tain, you may suggest, who has the ideal of being the 

52 



Twofold Morality 58 

most successful leader possible of a gang of rob- 
bers. Could he be regarded as ethical? From the 
point of view of this broad definition, I should be 
compelled to answer "Yes." So, too, if you should 
suggest some individual who might be aiming all the 
time at his own welfare. In so far as personal ad- 
vantage and aggrandizement might be the ideal which 
such an individual was constantly trying to realize, I 
should have to call him ethical. The same would be 
true in an almost innumerable array of cases which 
might readily occur to you. In so far as the indi- 
viduals considered might be striving to realize ideals, 
we should need to call them ethical. 

Such a view, however, seems to be wholly at vari- 
ance with the major argument in the last lecture, 
where the thoroughly selfish man, in so far as one can 
be thoroughly selfish, was regarded as unethical, and 
only those working definitely for social welfare were 
characterized as truly ethical. But a different prin- 
ciple puts in its appearance at once, a principle 
which we may regard as belonging especially within 
the field of comparative ethics. It would seem to 
be true, as we look over the entire course of social 
evolution, that there has been what we may call a 
struggle for existence among ideals, or we might 
also say a kind of survival of the fittest of ideals. 1 
Such ideals, then, as the two I called to your at- 
tention a moment ago, belong to earlier stages of 
»Cf. Seth, Ethical Principles, 8th Ed., p. 11. 



54 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

social development, but they have been gradually 
relegated to the rear as society has marched ever 
onward and upward toward higher and better things. 
The ideals which aim at social welfare instead of the 
welfare of any mere individual are the ideals which 
seem to be more worthy to survive. It was from this 
later, more appreciative standpoint that I put the 
emphasis where I did two weeks ago. When any one 
seeks to realize some ideal, he is to that extent ethical, 
but it may be that his ideal was long ago outlawed, 
and so in a very true sense can no longer be re- 
garded as ethical from the advanced position reached 
by society. 

But what, may we ask, is an ideal ? I used the term 
in the first lecture of the series, but it hardly seemed 
to be advisable to take time to indicate its essential 
features then. Now, however, I must give a few sug- 
gestions as to its meaning, and to do this I must have 
recourse to modern psychology. An ideal involves 
the imagination, and this phase of our mental life is 
generally treated under two main heads, viz., the re- 
productive imagination and the constructive imag- 
ination. 2 The first of these may be illustrated as 
follows: You may be reading some book which de- 
scribes an African or South American forest, and I 
will assume that you have never visited either of those 
continents, but as you read you have an image of a 
forest accompanying the description. This is due to 

'Titchener, An Outline of Psychology, pp. 295-298. 



Twofold Morality 55 

your actual experience of forests here in your native 
land. The trees with their wide spreading branches, 
the leaves and the various odors, all more or less 
blurred, come trooping along in consequence of the 
suggestions you get from your reading. There is no 
attempt on your part to make the imagery definite, 
nor is there any selection. You have a more or less 
vague forest feeling as a setting for what you read. 
The other kind of imagination, however, is different 
in that elements are selected from various experiences. 
We will say that a man wishes to write a description 
of a storm at sea, although he has never experienced 
one. This is, of course, rather hazardous, and yet 
not impossible. Such a writer, we will say, has been 
to sea but never in a storm, has stood upon the sea- 
shore and watched the waves driven by the gale roll 
dangerously near his feet; he has also been in many 
a tempest on land, beheld the vivid flashes of light- 
ning, and cowered at the deafening crashes of thun- 
der. From all these experiences he selects many ele- 
ments and constructs a fairly good description of a 
storm at sea. Notice particularly that there are no 
new elements furnished by the mind itself; simply a 
selection from various past experiences. Or, again, 
we will say that a man plans a building such as your 
new library or gymnasium. From the numerous 
buildings with which he is acquainted in different 
parts of the world and in different periods of history, 
he selects certain elements and puts them together 



56 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

in his plans, and ultimately the structure takes shape 
here upon your campus. The same is true of our 
ideals. We do not construct the materials, but from 
our own past experiences and from the experiences of 
the race, as history reveals them to us, we make our 
selection and fuse it all into a mental construct or 
symbol which we try to realize throughout life. Such 
is an ideal, and ethics deals with these ideals and the 
measure of realization attained by individuals and the 
race throughout all history. Let us turn, now, to 
our specific topic for the day, a twofold morality. 

To present this matter to you as I wish, I find it 
necessary to direct your attention first to a con- 
sideration of civilizations, and indeed to social evo- 
lution as a whole. Lewis H. Morgan, in his book on 
"Ancient Society," has indicated that to deal satis- 
factorily with society we must make distinctions 
within its limits. 3 He has suggested, and his sug- 
gestion has been followed by other writers, that we 
should divide humanity throughout its long history 
into savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The di- 
viding line between the first and second of these is the 
domestication of animals and the making of pottery, 
while the dividing line between the second and third 
is the possession of a phonetic alphabet and the art 
of writing. But we should not deceive ourselves into 
thinking that when civilization has been reached, all 
the earlier stages of society passed away at once. 
8 Ancient Society, pp. 3-18. 



Twofold Morality 57 

The earlier and the intermediate remain along with 
the latest. In Central Australia to-day, we can find 
men and women almost as primitive as the earliest 
in the race, 4 and in other parts of the world, as in 
Arabia, we can find good examples of the barbarous 
stage of human development. But still further, in 
every civilized community, we find suggestions of the 
three. Every child born into any civilized com- 
munity represents to a certain extent the savage 
stage, while the child of ten or twelve years is more 
or less of a barbarian, and then as he grows to ma- 
turity, if he is fortunate, he becomes more or less 
civilized. But aside from such a minute analysis of 
a civilized community, let us consider civilizations 
as such. 

There are at least two ways of viewing any civili- 
zation. We may select certain features as the lead- 
ing characteristics and say that they represent the 
civilization of a particular people. In this way, too, 
we may make comparisons among civilizations. By 
selecting several features of the life in America, my 
homeland, I could say that they fairly well repre- 
sent American civilization. I might also select simi- 
lar features from the life in Europe and say that 
they represent European civilization. Or, indeed, I 
might make a selection from the life here in China 
and say that those features represent Chinese civili- 

4 Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of CerUral Aus- 
tralia. 



58 Ts'vng Hua Lectures on Ethics 

zation. But more or less vagueness generally at- 
taches to our use of the term in this way. It is a 
very good shorthand symbol, very convenient at 
times, but not infrequently the vagueness and the 
broad generality of the term keep us from the clear- 
est thinking in this field. Consequently, I wish to 
suggest another way of dealing with the entire prob- 
lem. 

If we focus our attention upon a single community 
in any country, we can say very truthfully that that 
community represents the civilization of the whole, 
or that it is the civilization of the whole in miniature. 
I suggested in the first lecture that every science an- 
alyzes until it reaches a rather simple unit, and then 
the task of the scientists within that special field 
is to find the principles in accordance with which the 
units combine into the wholes which were first ob- 
served in that field. Now, I am not saying that the 
study of civilizations is a science, although it might 
well be, but I am suggesting that a community with- 
in any country may be taken as the unit of the 
civilization of that country. If we fix our attention 
upon America for a moment, we find many cities, 
large and small. Any one of them, indeed, might be 
taken as the unit of American civilization. We 
might, of course, make various groups, as the census 
officials do. There are the very large cities, as New 
York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and others that 
would be in a group by themselves; then there are 



Twofold Morality 59 

the cities of about 200,000 or 300,000 inhabitants, 
those of 100,000, and those of '50,000, or 25,000, and 
others of 10,000, or 5,000, and many smaller. But 
while there are differences among these cities, in that 
the larger ones have a somewhat more complex life, 
more elaborateness, more luxury, and so on, the re- 
semblances among them all would far outweigh the 
differences. Each one is really America in minia- 
ture. 

The same thing is true here in your own country. 
There are your large cities, as Peking, Tientsin, 
Shanghai, Hankow, Canton, and others that will 
readily occur to you ; then there are those of 500,000 
inhabitants, those of 300,000 or 200,000, and the 
smaller ones as in the case of America. These are 
all typical of Chinese civilization. To know any one 
of them in detail, would be to know the civilization 
of China very thoroughly. Of course there are dif- 
ferences among them, but if all the cities of the world 
could be spread out before us and we should mix 
them up and then try to group them according to 
their likenesses, we should probably put all the Chin- 
ese ones together because of their real resemblances 
in spite of some differences. Each and every one 
is really China in miniature. 

Thus, I think we can say that a community is the 
unit of any civilization, and to fix our attention upon 
a single community, to analyze it, and so come to 
know it through and through means to grasp the es- 



60 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

sential problems of that community, and at the same 
time of the entire country to which it belongs. If, 
then, we can make such a study and find out the 
meaning of a twofold morality for that particular 
community, we shall be in a position to appreciate 
the same for the country as a whole. It is to such 
an analysis that I wish to turn next. Since, however, 
I have been in your country for so short a time, I 
think that it will be best for me to present a pre- 
liminary study of an American community, and then 
point out as complete a parallel as I can with some 
one of your own communities. You can yourselves, 
also, as I proceed, fill in the outline very definitely 
from your own knowledge of the various cities and 
towns here in China. 

Let us take, then, a city of 5,000 or 10,000 in- 
habitants in America, right in the Mississippi val- 
ley, the very heart of the country, and apply such 
methods of study as I suggested in the last lecture. 
I may not take the time to follow them all out in de- 
tail, but if we consider the social population, and 
then the economic, the political, the moral and re- 
ligious, and the cultural activities, we shall know 
enough about such a community for our present 
purpose. 

If, now, we fix our attention upon the physical 
characteristics of the population in a city of 5,000 
inhabitants in the Middle West of America, we shall 
find that it is rather heterogeneous. There are the 



Twofold Morality 61 

descendents of the earlier settlers running back sev- 
eral generations, and various residents from other 
parts of the country, north, east, south, and west. 
It is not unlikely, too, that we shall find in the popu- 
lation some who went away at an earlier time to other 
parts of the country or to foreign lands, but have 
recently returned. There are, also, in rather large 
numbers proportionally, representatives from Ire- 
land, Germany, Italy, Greece, and from nearly all 
the other countries of Europe, with here and there 
an immigrant from still more remote parts of the 
world. It is a decidedly cosmopolitan population 
racially, and still more cosmopolitan with its ideas 
and customs from so many parts of the world. 

As to the economic activities in such a community, 
I need merely say that there are the wholesale mer- 
chants who do business in a large way, the various 
retail merchants, the banks, the milling or mining op- 
erations as the case may be, the clerks of several 
sorts, the teamsters, the day laborers so called, and 
the women who labor in their homes. With regard to 
the political activities, we should have to recognize 
at least two great parties, more or less opposed to 
each other when the election season is on, but for the 
most part able to live rather amicably with each 
other during the greater part of the year. There is 
a complete assortment of city officials, as the ma/or 
and his advisers who are generally called aldermen, 
the police, and the judiciary composed of the city 



63 Tsing II ua Lectures on Ethics 

court and a county or superior court. Then, too, 
there are the political bosses, usually holding no offi- 
cial position, but exercising a potent, perhaps we 
should rather say a baleful, influence throughout the 
community by means of their henchmen located in 
the several wards and districts. As to the moral 
and religious activities, we need to note that there 
is a church in America for every 450 people. 5 That 
would mean about ten churches in a community of 
5,000 inhabitants, and that number is often found. 
These for the most part represent different denomi- 
nations, as they are called, with their divergent be- 
liefs, although careful analysis shows that they have 
not a little in common. At times, however, their 
differences are magnified to a position of supreme im- 
portance. All these have their respective ideals of 
conduct which are presented and emphasized from 
week to week. Not infrequently, what one church 
prohibits another allows without any question. Still, 
taken as a whole, these institutions constitute a 
kind of moral censorship for the entire community 
with varying degrees of success. Then there are 
the cultural activities which can be thought of as 
represented by the fraternal societies, the library, 
reading clubs, debating societies, the school sys- 
tem, and a rather large number of other more or 
less similar organizations of which the activities 
could not properly be ranged under any one of the 
B Cf . Giddings, The Principles of Sociology, p. 190. 



Twofold Morality 63 

other groups considered. While much more might 
be said, this is sufficient, I think, to give a fair idea 
of a typical unit of American civilization to-day. 
What kind of parallel can we make for a Chinese 
community ? 

In the first place, the social population of a Chi- 
nese city of 5,000 or 10,000 inhabitants, somewhere 
in the central portion of the country, would be 
decidedly more homogeneous than the community 
we have just now considered. None the less I am 
inclined to believe that in addition to the descend- 
ents of the earlier generations there would be found 
a few who had come to dwell there from other parts 
of the country, north, east, south, or west. There 
probably would be none or very few people resident 
there from other parts of the world. But to fix our 
attention upon such a definite body of people will 
aid not a little in our effort to deal with the ethical 
problem for the country as a whole. 

As to the economic activities, I can merely say 
that, if we should make our way along the main 
street and some of the side streets, we would note 
the various stores dealing with nearly all sorts of 
commodities. There are the butchers, the bakers, 
and the grocers, the cabinet makers, the blacksmiths 
and the wheelwrights, the grinders of grains of dif- 
ferent sorts, the haberdashers and the undertakers, 
and in addition the donkey drivers and the ricksha 
men, the carriers of water and other day laborers. 



64 Tsing Him Lectures on Ethics 

The political life at present is undoubtedly in a 
ferment. Very likely there is an official at the head 
of the city either elected or appointed by the cen- 
tral government; there are political parties, too, 
in the making with their bosses and active workers 
of different grades. There are, also, the several 
government officials, as postal clerks, and in case 
our typical city were near the railroad, there would 
be the officials in charge of the business at the sta- 
tion. In regard to the moral and religious activi- 
ties, we will assume that there are representatives 
in rather large numbers of the ancient Confucian 
faith, but also not a few Buddhists, perhaps some 
Mohammedans, and possibly some who are of the 
prevailing faith in Europe and America. These 
various groups have their ethical programs which 
they are able to carry through with greater or less 
success. And finally there are the cultural activities 
consisting of the festivities in celebration of the 
founding of the Republic, the New Year celebra- 
tions, and not a few organizations and social groups 
with activities which could not be placed under any 
one of the other heads. 

Such, then, would be our typical community, and 
what I have failed to bring out because of my brief 
residence here, you can fill in from your own knowl- 
edge of many actual communities which you have 
been in throughout the country. Any such com- 
munity as this constitutes, as I have said, Chinese 



Twofold Morality 05 

civilization in miniature, and what we may find true 
of it, we may infer as true in varying degrees of 
the country as a whole. 

Now, with our attention focused upon a com- 
munity of this sort, analyzed in this way, let us 
observe a contrast that we are sure to find there, 
viz., a contrast between the social consciousness and 
the individual consciousness. If, for example, a 
robber band should make a raid upon the com- 
munity, break into and loot the bank, and perhaps 
kill one or two of the officials, the people as a whole 
would be a unit, very likely, in condemning the 
act. That would be their social consciousness re- 
acting against this relic of barbarism. The en- 
tire community would be thinking alike, and per- 
haps the entire male population would set out in 
pursuit of the bandits. If, however, a man should 
not treat his wife kindly, or if the wife should be 
unfaithful to her husband, possibly the whole com- 
munity would not think alike with reference to the 
matter. There might be a division of opinion, and 
each group according to its size would be either 
the social consciousness or an opposing conscious- 
ness more or less individual. If for the moment 
we assume that the community we are considering 
was particularly favored by and favorable to the 
Manchu dynasty before the Republic was estab- 
lished, any individual within it who might express 
an opinion against that dynasty and in favor of 



66 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

a revolution would feel the weight of the displea- 
sure of the consciousness of the entire community. 
On the other hand, if we assume such a community 
as existing under the present form of government 
and as favorable to it, any individual who might 
express a desire for the return of the Manchus 
to power would be in a dangerous minority. In 
every such community, and in practically every 
group within the community, there are more or less 
radical differences of opinion; there is an opposi- 
tion between the consciousness of the group as a 
whole and an individual here and there within the 
group. 

This relation, too, may be brought out in still 
another way. All of you here in Tsing Hua have 
a social consciousness. You are distinct from the 
community immediately about you. You have an 
environment peculiarly your own, you think some- 
what alike, there are rather definite socializing ten- 
dencies within the walls of this compound. This 
is especially evident when you engage in athletic 
contests with some other institution. You then pre- 
sent a solid front against your opponents. But 
within the institution there are cither conscious- 
nesses more or less independent and individual. The 
Senior class has a consciousness all its own, so has 
the Junior class, and so on down the list. This is 
very evident when you have your class contests. 
Then it is the class supremacy, the class conscious- 



Twofold Morality 67 

ness that seems to be most important. Or, again, 
some individual member of any one of these classes 
may oppose some contemplated class action. He 
thinks that he has a better plan or a better idea 
than that favored by the majority of his class- 
mates. Perhaps he is right, and by dint of much 
argument and perhaps some coaxing he gets the rest 
of the class to adopt his plan or idea, and then what 
had been almost purely a bit of individual con- 
sciousness becomes a part of the social conscious- 
ness of the entire group. Other illustrations, almost 
limitless in number, we need not consider at pres- 
ent. We are more interested in the significance of 
this background for our topic of a "two-fold mor- 
ality," than in the opposition itself, which none the 
less has been of vital importance throughout the his- 
tory of civilization. 6 

Let us think, now, for a moment of some boy born 
into such a community as I have analyzed. He is 
trained very carefully by his parents, instructed 
in all the traditions of his particular family and 
in the history and traditions of his city and of his 

fl Cf. Deniker, The Races of Man, pp. 157, 497; Robinson, 
The New History, p. 236; Sumner, Folkways, p. 224; Kropot- 
kin, Mutual Aid, pp. xvi, 293-300; James, Some Problems of 
Philosophy, p. 3; Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Ap- 
plied, pp. 226-227; Johnson, God in Evolution, p. 203; Ross, 
Social Psychology, p. 192; Cooley, Human Nature and the 
Social Order, p. 325; Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, p. 484; Angell, 
Chapters from Modern Psychology, pp. 212-214; Cornford, 
Prom Religion to Philosophy, p. 45. 



68 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

country to a limited extent. He follows his father 
in his religious faith or lack of such faith, enters 
his father's business, and becomes the head of that 
business at his father's death. His father's friends 
and business acquaintances are his, and in every re- 
spect possible he is like his father in act, thought, 
and relations in general. Could such a young man 
be called ethical? Undoubtedly we would have to 
term him ethical, although perhaps he never definite- 
ly entertained an ideal. But he has the traditional 
morality of that community, and more or less im- 
plicitly, and indeed to a certain extent explicitly, 
his father's life has been the ideal which he has striven 
to realize in as full measure as possible. This is 
one type of morality, the traditional type, a real 
genuine type. Its various details, however, I can 
not elaborate further for lack of time. 

There is, also, another type which I am inclined 
to call the variant type which manifests itself in many 
ways. We will assume that a young fellow, born 
into such a community as we are considering, goes 
away from home to school. Perhaps he goes to 
America for college and university training, and 
when he returns to his native city he insists upon 
introducing into his mode of life certain features 
which he thinks are good because he has seen their 
good results elsewhere. But the large - ma j ority of 
the people in that community severely disapprove 
such a deviation from the ways of the fathers. 



Twofold Morality 99 

What the outcome of the struggle will be, only a 
great variety of circumstances will determine. Per- 
haps the good results flowing into this young man's 
life from the innovations, provided he is allowed to 
follow his new program, will be so apparent and so 
seemingly valuable that a large number of his fel- 
low-townsmen will imitate him, and thus what was 
at first only a part of his individual consciousness 
will become a part of the social consciousness and he 
will be hailed as a public benefactor. On the other 
hand, it may be that the community will object so 
strenuously to the innovation that the young man 
will either have to abandon his new mode of living 
or be excluded from the community altogether. Pos- 
sibly, when excluded, he will slowly gather a small 
group of imitators in some other environment, and 
then the good results will become so apparent to 
the old community that it will change its attitude, 
adopt the new methods and hail the exile as an 
ethical pioneer. Of course, it might be that the 
thing which the young man wished to introduce into 
his own life and into the life of the community was 
something which had been tried earlier with bad 
results. For any one to attempt to reintroduce this 
would be to fly in the face of the experience of the 
group. The young man would be privileged to do 
so, from one point of view, but it would be ethical 
only to the extent that that way of life was ethical 
at an earlier period. If it were something which 



70 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

the community had wisely set its ban upon, then 
any attempt to revive that form of living would 
represent a backward step. 

But I have said enough, I think, to indicate what 
I mean by a "twofold morality." It is the contrast 
between the old, traditional morality, and the moral- 
ity which results from individual initiative and the 
desire to appropriate what is good in the world out- 
side of one's own particular community. It is on 
the inventive, experimental side of life, and may be 
productive of good, although there is undoubtedly a 
chance that it may prove detrimental. But nothing 
venture, nothing have. The attitude of mind of an 
individual who thus sets himself in opposition to the 
social consciousness is exceedingly valuable, although 
fraught with dangers. And further, if the opposi- 
tion be the result of a conscious purpose to do the 
community good, to add to the social welfare, then 
we should have to term it exceedingly ethical, and 
appraise highly the life of the individual who dis- 
plays it. 

But now I wish to suggest one other thing in this 
connection. Oftentimes when an individual sets him- 
self in opposition to the social consciousness, he 
says that he does so because of his conscience. He 
has sunk the plummet down deep into his own soul, 
as he says, and has found there the absolute truth. 
But there is danger in such an attitude of mind. It 
is so easy for any one to get decidedly tangled up 



Twofold Morality 71 

in the intricacies of his own inner consciousness. He 
needs an objective reference. A definition of con- 
science given by Paulsen meets this need. Conscience, 
he maintained, is the consciousness of custom. 7 It 
is easy to see this in such a community as we have 
been considering. If the ordinary person does as 
the social consciousness dictates, he has an easy con- 
science, but if he goes counter to that social con- 
sciousness, his conscience troubles him. But how 
can this view harmonize with the attitude of the in- 
dividual who opposes the social consciousness and yet 
says that he has a quiet conscience? Such a one, 
we may well suppose, might conceive of a more ideal 
society than the one to which he belonged physically 
and be guiding his conduct by the social conscious- 
ness of that ideal group. In this way, he would have 
a conscience in the same sense as Paulsen's definition 
implies, but be decidedly different from his fellow- 
townsmen in his conduct. Such an objective refer- 
ence, although, of course, the result of the individual's 
own thinking, would be of no little value to him. His 
conscience would be the consciousness of custom, 
but a consciousness of the customs of a more ideal 
group. The ideal states of Plato, Campanelli, Sir 
Thomas More, Edward Bellamy, and others, have 
been, in a sense, such objective references. 

One other way of illustrating this whole matter 
and I shall be through. In any species of animals 
'Paulsen, A System of Ethics, Tr. Thilly, p. 363. 



7f Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

there are certain modes of living which are more 
or less peculiar to that species. We might call them 
the social habits of that species, although ordinarily 
they are termed instincts. To behave in such rather 
definite ways is best for that species. Indeed, the 
species has developed and maintained itself by strict 
adherence to such habits. To live in any other way 
would be to court death and the extinction of the 
group. But all this is well enough so long as the 
environment remains unchanged. Instincts are then 
sufficient for the welfare of that group. As soon, 
however, as the environment changes, the animals 
must change their behavior more or less radically or 
they will not survive. The price of survival so long 
as the environment remains unchanged, is the faith- 
ful adherence to what we might call their traditional 
ways of living, but when the environment changes, 
the price of survival is a change in modes of be- 
havior. Fixed environment means fixed modes of 
behavior, but changed environment means changed 
modes of behavior. In a sense, we might say that it 
is ethical for such creatures to abide by traditional 
ways of living so long as the old environment re- 
mains, but unethical, if the surroundings change. 

Let me suggest now, if you will, an application of 
this entire discussion to you yourselves and your 
national life. For many centuries your people have 
had certain rather definite courses of conduct which 
you have regarded as the ideal ways of living. These 



Twofold Morality 78 

social habits have been inculcated by your great 
ethical teachers and leaders. And this was good 
so long as your environment remained practically 
unchanged. Very likely that was the best way for 
you. But a changed environment, such as we can 
not fail to recognize in the world as a whole to-day, 
makes it dangerous for your people to persist in 
the old ways. You yourselves, as students from all 
parts of China, and with plans for several years 
of study in America or elsewhere, constitute a kind 
of opposition to the old social consciousness. I 
doubt not but that some of you in your old city 
or town environment have been more or less single 
individuals in opposition to the old-time conservative 
attitude of mind of your fellow-townsmen. It was 
no small struggle through which you passed in your 
opposition to the old, but in making such a struggle 
you put yourselves on the side of the more progres- 
sive type of morality. Still further, as you get the 
training at your disposal here and then obtain all 
that you can from further years of travel and study 
abroad, with the specific purpose of returning to 
your native land and to your particular city or 
town to contribute to the welfare of that community 
and to the welfare of China as a whole, you will be 
exemplifying the higher type of ethics which I have 
been presenting to you to-day all too hurriedly. 
There is always this contrast between the old and 
the new. The old was good in its particular day and 



74 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

generation, but it is a new world with which we are 
forced to deal to-day. The new world environment 
makes your individual programs essential to the 
welfare of China, and in so far as you may help to 
establish a part of the new as a substitute for some 
of the old will you be in a high degree moral. You 
are actually, and to a greater extent potentially, 
representative of a high type of ethics. 



IV 



THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 

IN the preceding lectures I have rather generally 
assumed progress, although I have not used the 
term more than once or twice. My position, in 
what I have said, has been like that of most people 
at the present day, who assume progress as a reality, 
without, however, attempting to indicate just what 
that progress consists in. But notwithstanding this 
rather general acceptance of progress, occasionally 
a different note is sounded, and then we are forced 
to give a reason for the faith that is within us, if we 
can. 

"Ages of progress !" exclaims Mr. Andrew Lang 
in his preface to Fitzgerald's translation of Omar 
Khayyam's "Rubaiyat." 

"Ages of progress ! These eight hundred years 
Hath Europe shuddered with her hopes or fears, 
And now! — She listens in the wilderness 
To thee, and half believeth what she hears!" 

For a thousand years, more or less, is what Mr. 
Lang meant, Europe had been following certain 
rather definite ideals; ideals of self-denial and of 

75 



76 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

self-subordination; ideals which for the most part 
consisted in postponing present pleasures and im- 
mediate personal welfare for the sake of a greater 
good, a greater happiness to be realized in the future, 
either in this world or in the next, and then the phil- 
osophy of this Persian sage came to the attention 
of one or another, and they paused, perhaps some- 
what aghast, at the thought that possibly they had 
been on the wrong track. "Why mourn over dead 
yesterdays," sang the poet, "if to-day be sweet?" 
Why wait until the morrow, he further suggests, 
when the morrow may never come? Seize the pleasures 
of the moment, before it be too late. 

"The Bird of Time has but a little way 
To fly— and Lo ! the Bird is on the Wing." 

Make the most of the present, insists the singer, 
for it is only the present that you are sure of. 
Neglect no single opportunity for present pleasure 
with a view to some future good, for, indeed, there 
may be no future at all for you. And the question 
which came to many a one was this: "Have we, 
as a people, been following a mirage? Have we, 
as so many have fondly dreamed, been progressing 
from better toward the best, or have we wretchedly 
failed in our interpretation of life, and should we 
at once right about face?" And this was no simple 
query over which they pondered more or less 
anxiously. 






The Problem of Progress 77 

Then, too, one of the professors under whom I 
studied several years ago, definitely raised this ques- 
tion of progress in one of his lectures. I had always 
taken the matter for granted. For many years prog- 
ress had seemed to me to be axiomatic, but some 
of the material presented on that occasion showed 
at least the possibility of a serious doubt. Imme- 
diately, therefore, I set myself at work to see whether 
or not progress could be proved, and it is some of the 
results of that investigation, together with various 
other reflections, that I am about to present to 
you to-day. 

And at the very outset, let me say that I do not 
believe that we can prove progress in the deductive 
sense of that term. There is an inductive as well 
as a deductive meaning of the term "prove," but 
unfortunately we generally have only the deductive 
sense prominently in mind. We become acquainted 
with this meaning in our study of mathematics, 
especially geometry. In that study, we have a prop- 
osition stated for us in a beautifully concise form, 
and then, by using the knowledge gained in the de- 
monstration of other equally concise propositions, 
we proceed step by step until we reach the proper 
conclusion, and then with a feeling of great satisfac- 
tion we add the cabalistic letters, Q. E. D. How 
convincing it all is ! How certain we feel about that 
conclusion ! We have proved it absolutely, we think. 
And this, as I have suggested, is the deductive mean- 



78 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ing of the term "prove" which is usually uppermost 
in our minds when that word is mentioned. The in- 
ductive sense, however, is rather naturally quite dif- 
ferent. In this case, we gather a lot of data, we 
carefully sift the material, determine what the facts 
are, balance one fact over against another, weigh 
various statements, and then we put our thought 
into propositional form. We have then a certain 
degree of subjective assurance with reference to the 
opinion we have formed. We believe it, and we 
have good reasons for our belief. This, also, as I 
have intimated, is real 'proving, but it must be 
evident to all that the attitude of the mind is 
considerably different from that which comes from 
the other process. Here we have varying degrees 
of subjective assurance, while there we felt a dead 
certainty. 

Now, as I said, I do not think that we can prove 
progress in the deductive sense of that term, but 
there is not a little evidence which may be presented 
to give us a fairly high degree of subjective assur- 
ance, and it is this which I wish to present to you 
to-day. And I shall need to consider, too, to make 
the argument most effective, what may be called cos- 
mic progress, social progress, and then moral prog- 
ress, or rather the part which morality has played 
in social progress. Let us see what may be said in 
connection with each topic. 

I hesitate somewhat about introducing cosmic 



The Problem of Progress 79 

progress, since the subject is so vast and our time 
so limited. None the less, I feel that it is necessary 
to say just a word or two with reference to that sub- 
ject. Mr. Spencer, in his "First Principles," has 
suggested that there was originally in the universe, 
where our solar system now exists, nothing but a 
kind of fire-mist, a rather homogeneous stuff in 
unstable equilibrium. At length a differentiating or 
integrating process was set up within this stuff, and 
this meant a dissipation of energy and a correspond- 
ing loss of motion. Ultimately the solar system, as 
we know it, came to be in consequence of this process. 
Then, later, there was a comparatively long period 
of fairly stable equilibrium, or balance of the in- 
tegrating and the disintegrating forces, to be fol- 
lowed, according to Mr. Spencer, by a period of 
dissolution which would result ultimately in the 
complete resolution of this entire solar system back 
into the original fire-mist. From fire-mist to fire- 
mist, according to this theory, is the ceaseless round 
of cosmic evolution and dissolution, and the question 
which arises is, How much progress can we discern 
in such a constant ebb and flow of cosmic stuff, 
either in this part of the universe or elsewhere? If 
in any such cycle of transformations everything 
should ultimately return to exactly the same con- 
ditions as prevailed before the process began, how 
much progress could we legitimately assume? And 
this question, as it seems to me, we can not answer 



80 T skiff Hua Lectures on Ethics 

very definitely. In fact, I doubt if we can secure 
any considerable degree of subjective assurance with 
reference to the entire cycle. There is, however, 
change, and that much I wish to emphasize, for it 
is in line with one of the deepest interpretations ever 
yet made of the universe as a whole. 

Among the ancient Greeks, there were two funda- 
mental interpretations of the world set over against 
each other. In fact, it has been asserted by com- 
petent students that all the thinking in Europe dur- 
ing the last twenty-five hundred years harmonizes 
with either the one or the other of these two views. 
They are ordinarily spoken of as Being and Becom- 
ing. On the one hand, the world was thought of as 
being eternally the same, yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. There is no such thing as change in the whole 
vast universe. Static immobility reigns supreme. On 
the other hand, the world was thought of as being in 
constant flux. There is nothing stable but the law 
of change itself. As between these two views, we can 
not decide absolutely. We can not give a deductive 
proof for either. This much, however, may be said. 
In different periods of the developing life in Europe, 
one or the other of these views has been stressed. In 
the medieval period, the emphasis was on static im- 
mobility, while in our modern age the constant chang- 
ing character of the world is at the front. - Now, this 
very shifting back and forth of opinion agrees with 
the interpretation of change more than it does with 



The Problem of Progress 81 

that of static immobility, so that to that extent the 
former may be regarded as more nearly adequate, 
but the weight of argument is not very great. 

Thus we see that whether we turn to the ancient 
Greek world, or listen to an eminent modern thinker, 
we find a decided emphasis upon a changing world, 
but we may not say with any high degree of cer- 
tainty that such changes mean progress. I have in- 
troduced the matter just to give a suggestion of the 
difficulties with which we have to contend when we at- 
tempt to deal with the problem of cosmic progress. 
Change, from many points of view, there certainly 
seems to be, but whether this means progress or not, 
when we take a wide survey, we can not assert with 
any appreciable degree of subjective assurance. Let 
us turn, then, from this rather unprofitable field of 
speculation to the realm of social progress, and see 
what may be said when we hold ourselves within 
rather narrow limits. 

That there are numerous changes in our ordinary 
life and in the world immediately about us is very 
evident to all. Summer follows winter and winter 
summer; rain follows snow or snow rain. There is 
sunshine and then shadow, heat and cold, pain and 
pleasure. There is youth, middle life, and old age. 
One generation, too, follows another with almost 
frightful rapidity. What is there that is fixed or 
upon which we may depend in such a world ? And let 
me say here, too, that I am not raising in this con- 



88 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

nection the question of worth. The youth, now be- 
come a man, perhaps would have been better off, had 
he never beheld "the light that never was on sea or 
land" "fade into the light of common day," but 
actually just this transformation takes place with 
all. It may be that the primitive savage, however 
mythical he may at times seem to be, with his simple 
life, lack of nerves, minimum of curiosity and maxi- 
mum of contentment, was better off than the mod- 
ern man vainly trying to "look pleased" with a mass 
of "undigested securities" and colossal liabilities, but 
as a matter of fact the modern man with his nerves, 
almost insatiable curiosity, and at time worthless se- 
curities is the reality, while the happy savage is 
wrapped about with an almost impenetrable fog of 
centuries. But the worth of the process, as I have 
said, I am not considering at this time. All that I 
am suggesting is that changes, within fairly narrow 
limits, are undeniable. What interpretation may we 
place upon them? 

When we survey the entire field of social evolution, 
as it is called, we find the situation about the same as 
I have just briefly suggested. We may not deny the 
changes that have taken place and that are taking 
place practically everywhere in the world to-day, and 
when we look just beneath the surface we find that 
this change has been and is from a simple to a more 
complex mode of life. Undoubtedly life was suffi- 
ciently complex for the primitive savage. With his 



The Problem of Progress 83 

particular mental endowment, it was a serious prob- 
lem which he faced when he tried to construct his 
bow and arrows, when he sought to clothe himself and 
to provide himself with proper shelter. But how- 
ever complex life may have seemed to him, it is cer- 
tainly true that early civilization presented still more 
complex problems for men to solve, while later civili- 
zations have increased in complexity with an almost 
geometrical ratio. It was but a little world that 
primitive man viewed, and the early civilizations in 
the Nile valley and in the valleys of the Tigris and 
Euphrates were comparatively on a small scale. 
Their problems were undoubtedly complex for those 
times, but simple compared with what the modern 
man faces. Even the world of the Greeks and Ro- 
mans, for the most part centered about the Mediter- 
ranean, was simple in comparison with what we call 
our modern civilization, the limits of which are the 
limits of the world itself. 

This difference is brought vividly before us, when 
we view, as I did this last summer, some of the rather 
primitive settlements of the North American In- 
dians, and then meet, as I did later upon the Pacific, 
a modern business man from South Africa, who is 
constantly studying the map of the world. This 
man is a banker, and indicated that in any given 
transaction he habitually has before his mind the 
trade and exchange conditions in the great business 
centers of the world. Before he can commit himself 



84> Tsmg Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

in an important transaction, he has to consider the 
situation in New York City, London, Paris, San 
Francisco, Yokohama, Shanghai, Hongkong, Cal- 
cutta, Melbourne, and the principal cities of South 
America as well as those of South Africa. What an 
intricate web of human affairs such a man has to deal 
with, and there are very many more of the same sort 
in all these large centers. Never before in the his- 
tory of the world was there such intricacy of business 
and of communication among men. When we turn 
our attention away from some particular place 
which we might analyze for some special purpose, as 
I suggested two weeks ago, and consider the pattern 
of human life as it is being woven in the world as a 
whole at the present day, we get a complexity far be- 
yond anything which the world has previously seen. 
And this very complexity is evidence of progress. 

In the field of biology, as pointed out by the late 
Professor Minot of Harvard University, the more 
complex structure may be regarded as the higher. 
"The primary object," he said, "of all differentia- 
tion is physiological. The higher organism, with its 
complex physiological relations, is something really 
higher in structure than the lower organism. The 
term 'higher' in biology implies a much more complex 
interrelation of the parts, a much more complex re- 
lation of the organism to the outside world; and 
above all it implies in the highest animals a complex 
intelligence of which only a rudimentary prophecy 



The Problem of Progress 85 

exists in the lowest forms of life." 1 Of course, this 
is a more or less arbitrary ruling, and yet since com- 
plexity is used in biology as a criterion of the higher, 
why may we not use it in a similar way as a test of 
higher in comparison with a lower in the field of so- 
cial evolution ? This seems to me to be advisable, and 
in consequence we get a definite meaning for the term 
"progress," for we may say that a distinct change 
from a simpler to a more complex state of society is 
from a lower to a higher, or, as common thought 
would put it, that would be progress. Thus we have 
changes in society, and throughout the untold centu- 
ries such changes have been in the main from a rather 
simple form of social life to a more and more complex 
form, and this change we may definitely, although 
more or less arbitrarily, regard as from a lower to 
a higher, and such a change we may properly call 
progress. 

Another method of dealing with the problem is to 
see what leading students of society have said with 
reference to it. Our time is all too short to present 
the evidence in detail, but a few selected opinions will 
undoubtedly help to produce not a little subjective 
assurance as to social progress. 

Mr. Spencer has laid emphasis upon social prog- 
ress. He has indicated, however, that progress has 

x Age, Growth, and Death, p. 154. Cf. Ostwald, Natural 
Philosophy, Tr. Seltzer, p. 176; Bergson, Creative Evolution, 
Tr. Mitchell, p. 104; Conn, Biology, p. 385; Johnson, God in 
Evolution, p. 175. 



86 Tsvng Hua Lectures on Ethics 

not been a continuously uniform upward movement. 2 
In line with his rhythmical interpretation of the uni- 
verse, his thought was that human progress has been 
like the advance of the tide upon the seashore. A 
big wave rolls high upon the sand and then recedes; 
this is followed by another and another until ulti- 
mately high tide is reached. But none the less he re- 
gards it as real progress, and as a criterion he sug- 
gests the changes in the methods of production. 
Originally there was mere hand production ; this gave 
way to animal production which in turn was suc- 
ceeded by machine production. 3 If we contrast the 
early hand weaving with the product of even the hand 
loom, but more particularly with the volume of work 
yielded by a modern power loom, the real progress 
achieved is very apparent. 

Mr. Lester Ward, who during his lifetime was re- 
garded as one of the great leaders of sociological 
thought in America, has suggested that the progress 
of the race, when viewed from certain angles, is not 
so apparent as we are generally inclined to think. 
"There is what we call human progress," he says, 
which "is but a rhythmic and only partial success in 
rendering a worse condition a trifle better," 4 but 
none the less he terms it progress. Still further, he 
presents several tests to aid in judging of progress. 

a First Principles, Sections 85-88. 

a Principles of Sociology, Vol. Ill, pp. 362, 608-609. 

* Outlines of Sociology, p. 33. 



The Problem of Progress 87 

"In every community," he says in substance, "no 
sooner are the simpler questions settled than new and 
more complex ones arise, but this very elevation of 
public discussion is itself evidence of progress." And 
again he says, "The greater valuation placed upon 
human life to-day is one of the best tests of progress. 
The gradual abolition of the so-called code of honor 
by the more advanced nations also looks in the same 
direction. So, too, the dying out of the spirit of 
martyrdom, which is by some regarded as evidence of 
degeneration, is on the contrary good evidence of an 
increased value set upon human life and so points 
toward progress." He also adds that a change from 
a "pain economy to a pleasure economy" signifies 
progress, and most of all a "growing sense of good" 
in the world is a sure mark of progress. 5 

Professor Robinson of Columbia University, in his 
little book on "The New History," says that only 
within the last three or four hundred years have men 
been conscious of progress, and only within the last 
fifty or seventy-five years have they realized that they 
could direct progress and have they been definitely 
trying to reach such a goal. 6 Still, in all that 
he says in this connection the assumption of prog- 
ress is very pronounced. Professor Giddings, 
too, of this same institution, said in a lecture several 
years ago that "race maintenance and evolution with 

• Outlines of Sociology, pp. 157-158, 205-207. 
•P. 251. 



88 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

diminishing cost of life, with increasing power, free- 
dom, and happiness of the individual person — that is 
progress." 7 This I regard as an especially signifi- 
cant statement, but I do not care to comment upon 
it at length just now. I shall recur to it later in 
connection with moral progress. This much, how- 
ever, I may call attention to now. Both Professor 
Giddings and Lester Ward lay emphasis upon the 
value placed upon human life as a criterion of prog- 
ress. Where two such men agree, we may well heed 
the point of their agreement. 

Such statements as these, taken in conjunction 
with the test of complexity, add not a little, I sus- 
pect, to our subjective assurance as to human prog- 
ress. We do not get a deductive demonstration, 
but considering the difficulties involved in the prob- 
lem, the result is not altogether unsatisfactory. 

Still another suggestive way of dealing with this 
matter is as follows: Several years ago, Professor 
Giddings, with whom you should feel fairly well 
acquainted by this time because of my frequent ref- 
erences to him, assigned the following task to a stu- 
dent : He wanted that student to go through English 
history, period by period, and century by century, 
and to find out what men's desires were; what their 
ambitions were, and what means they used to satisfy 
their desires and to gain their ambitions. This seemed 

7 Columbia University Lectures on Science, Philosophy, and 
Art. 1907-1908. Lecture on Sociology, p. 36. 



The Problem of Progress 89 

like a big undertaking, but the student set himself 
resolutely to work and when he had finished there 
stood out upon his results, unmistakably and clearly, 
the one word "Progress." It had often been disputed 
whether one could prove progress in the case of any 
nation. There could be no doubt about the English 
people when this young man had completed his task. 
In the earlier periods the principle that might makes 
right was at the front. The lower, coarser desires 
were much in evidence, and men were but little 
scrupulous as to the means they used to satisfy their 
desires and to gain their ambitions. As the centuries 
passed, however, "sweet reasonableness," as it has 
been called, became more and more prominent. Men 
were ready to arbitrate at least some of their differ- 
ences ; the finer emotions and desires were much more 
in evidence than in the earlier periods. Undoubtedly 
the English people had progressed throughout the 
long centuries of their history. 8 And what was true 
of them no doubt would be shown to be true in varying 
degrees of other peoples, provided the same method 
should be applied. It certainly would be a highly 
desirable thing to have all the peoples of the world 
tested in this way, to the extent that their history 
might be available. Could it be done, we should have 
a fairly good demonstration of the progress which 
has characterized the world up to the present. 

"This is in substance as the point was presented in a class- 
room lecture. 



90 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

One other way of testing progress within the so- 
cial body as a whole, and I shall be through with this 
part of our work to-day. Social control may well be 
used as a test of progress. The difference between 
children and adults is especially marked in the mat- 
ter of control. A child of five or six years of age 
believes almost everything that is told him, and he 
will do practically anything that he is urged to do, 
but when he becomes a man he has an accumulation of 
experiences upon which he reflects before he takes any 
serious step. And what is true of the individual, has 
been true in a very real sense of the race. Mr. Lewis 
H. Morgan, in his book on "Ancient Society," has 
said that the Semitic peoples and the Aryan peoples, 
using the term "Aryan" in the older sense, were the 
first peoples to emerge from barbarism and to estab- 
lish real civilization. 9 In addition to the reasons 
which he assigns for this step, we might well assume 
that these two peoples had come to exercise a some- 
what greater control over themselves than was true 
of the other peoples. Social control, then, would 
thus be an index of progress. At any rate, in almost 
any present day civilized community the most fla- 
grant infractions of the law are treated promptly and 
energetically. Then, too, if we should compare two 
communities of about the same size and should find 
that one of them has a strong police force and very 
little crime, while the other has a weak police force 

8 Pp. 39-45. 



The Problem of Progress 91 

and much crime, we would be apt to call the former 
more highly developed because of the greater control 
exercised. But still further, any diminution in the 
need for a police force would also be interpreted as 
an evidence of progress. While I have not the statis- 
tics at hand, I will venture the opinion that not more 
than one per cent, of the population of the United 
States comes into collision with the laws annually. 
That would mean about a million cases. I doubt very 
much if there are a million people in that country 
who need to be controlled by the law. The other 
99,000,000 are self-controlled, and this in itself would 
be evidence of very great progress. 10 

Still further, the control which men have exer- 
cised over their fellows in the centuries past has not 
been an altogether bad thing. Oftentimes we are 
shocked at man's inhumanity toward man in the cen- 
turies gone, but Mr. Spencer has insisted that that 
was not an unmixed evil. 11 Just because men were 
compelled to work long hours, under the whip it may 
be, were they disciplined to shoulder the duties and 
responsibilities of later civilized society. So, too, it 

10 This is simply a guess which a careful investigation might 
not confirm in every respect. None the less, even if there were 
ten or twenty millions who annually came into conflict with 
the law, the remaining eighty or ninety millions who keep 
free from judicial entanglements would be a sufficiently large 
proportion of the entire population to make an impressive 
argument for social, indeed, self-control as an index of social 
progress. 

11 Principles of Sociology, Vol. II, p. 665; Vol. Ill, p. 465. 



92 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

is frequently pointed out that the rather apparent 
tyranny of the Church in Europe during the medieval 
period was not without its value. The barbarians 
who had overrun the older civilization needed such 
control, and, while we not infrequently are inclined 
to criticize the methods used in the process, the net 
result may be regarded as good. The same may be 
said within certain limits of the control which in 
times past the more advanced nations have exercised 
over less well developed nations. Undoubtedly there 
has been not a little exploitation, but with that excep- 
tion such control has been of not a little value. With- 
in the last three years, however, a higher thought has 
come to the front, none other, indeed, than that it is 
not best for any nation to interfere with the internal 
life of another. Each nation should be allowed to 
work out its own salvation without pernicious inter- 
ference from any other nation. Other nations, of 
course, may aid to the extent of their ability and in- 
clination, but the policy of "Hands Off" points the 
way to higher things. This is the policy which is 
rapidly taking shape in the consciousness of the 
world because of the present European conflict, and 
any nation that holds by the old ideal of exploitation 
in the face of the events of the last three years will 
sooner or later find itself in serious conflict with that 
consciousness. 

And now the question arises as to what may be 
meant by moral progress, or what part morality has 



The Problem of Progress 93 

played in this social progress. And here I think that 
I can do no better than to take that statement quot- 
ed from Professor Giddings a few minutes ago and, 
considering it section by section, try to determine 
what has been the moral element in the entire social 
process. "Race maintenance and evolution," he said, 
"with diminishing cost of life, with increasing power, 
freedom, and happiness of the individual person — 
that is progress." 

Nature has been pictured for us by Huxley as "red 
in tooth and claw." The waste of life, especially hu- 
man life, was frightful throughout the early ages. 
Much of this waste was due to disease, and not in- 
frequently disease was believed to be due to the anger 
of some god or malevolent spirit. The methods for 
an attempted cure were crude in the extreme. Any 
individual, then, who opposed the social conscious- 
ness in the treatment of disease and sought to intro- 
duce more rational methods was to that extent a 
moral hero. Nor was such a person's position always 
an enviable one. It is frequently dangerous to op- 
pose a people's superstitions. Then, too, any one in 
more recent times who has spent months or years in 
the quest of some serum to cure a malignant disease, 
sometimes criticized by the unthinking masses for his 
apparent waste of time, has been to that extent a 
moral hero. Of course it might be urged that any 
one who might discover such a serum could use it 
upon himself and so get the desired immunity. By 



94 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

doing so, however, he would be selfish and not altru- 
istic. But very seldom, if ever, has a man sought such 
a cure for himself alone. It has been the welfare of 
others, of humanity as a whole, which has inspired 
him and kept him patiently at his work. So, too, in 
the case of vivisectionists. Such men have been con- 
vinced that not a little valuable knowledge may be 
obtained for the welfare of the race from careful 
study of the lower animals, and in spite of popular 
clamor they have held true to their purpose. All 
such efforts have aimed at lessening human mortality 
and so are in line with the growing valuation of life. 
This is indeed an evidence of social progress, but 
every step of the way was a moral step, involving 
the opposition between the individual consciousness 
and the social consciousness which I presented at the 
last hour. 

If we consider, next, the "increasing power" of the 
individual, we shall find the case much the same. In 
early times, if any man gave evidence of special pow- 
er, either physical or mental, he aroused the jealousy 
of the rulers and his life was in danger. "Saul has 
slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands," 
sang the women as they went out to meet David re- 
turning from a victory over the foe. And Saul was 
angry and sought how he might slay the victor. 
This, of course, is but one of almost innumerable 
similar cases throughout the history of the race. As 
the centuries passed, however, the situation changec? 



The Problem of Progress 95 

somewhat, but the change has been due in no small 
measure to what such men have actually contributed 
to the common good. They and the people have been 
too strong for the rulers. But not infrequently the 
suspicions of the people have been strong against 
such men of power, and with good reason, too, in 
many cases. Gradually, however, as some of these 
men have held steadily on their way and have actual- 
ly contributed largely to the social good, has the 
opposition lessened somewhat. There is more scope 
and opportunity for the exercise of their powers to- 
day than ever before. And right here, we may well 
suggest, is a specially valuable field for them to 
work. The "great man theory" of history is in 
rather ill repute to-day, but in so far as men with 
a large endowment of mind and heart shall give them- 
selves more and more freely for the welfare of the 
communities in which they live, will they disarm still 
further the suspicions of the common people and be- 
come still more influential factors in social progress 
as a whole. 

When we turn to the "increasing freedom" of the 
individual, we find a long series of steps taken toward 
the end realized in modern civilization. There is 
freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of 
religious worship, freedom of thought, freedom of 
movement from place to place, and various other steps 
too numerous to mention. All of these mark defi- 
nite social progress, but each at first involved a moral 



96 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

attitude. During the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies in Europe, the blood of multitudes of the best 
people was shed for one or another of these issues. 
In each case there was an opposition to the social 
consciousness, an opposition which the succeeding 
centuries has shown was of great value for social wel- 
fare, and consequently, in accordance with the test 
that I have emphasized, highly moral. And to-day, 
each of the groups involved in the great conflict in 
Europe proclaims that it is fighting for freedom. The 
Central Powers maintain that they are fighting for 
the "freedom of the seas," while the Entente Powers 
declare that they are fighting for the right of each 
state, whether great or small, to live its own life and 
to make its own peculiar contribution to the civiliza- 
tion of the world. When we consider that many of 
the previously neutral states have joined the Entente 
Allies during the past year, we may conclude that 
the world has rather definitely decided which group 
has the better argument on its side. From the point 
of view that I presented two weeks ago, we shall have 
to concede that the Central Powers, in so far as they 
are trying to realize an ideal, are ethical, but their 
ideal is out of date. It belongs five thousand years 
in the past. It is an anachronism in our modern 
world, and we may well hope that the more demo- 
cratic group will speedily prevail. 

With reference to the "increasing happiness" of 
the individual, I need say but little. The introduc- 



The Problem of Progress 97 

tion of these other elements through much travail of 
the human spirit could not fail to add immeasurably 
to the individual and collective happiness of the 
world. We need to note, however, that the recog- 
nition of each individual's right to the "pursuit of 
happiness" is a modern achievement, the result of 
definite opposition on the part of not a few indi- 
viduals to the social consciousness that had long 
prevailed. It constituted a real moral issue, and 
those who struggled for it were moral heroes. Their 
contribution to the social welfare of the race is of 
no mean value. 

But one might well ask, "Have all the important 
issues been disposed of?" and the answer would be 
a strong denial. We are very far indeed from such 
an Utopian condition. I have already called atten- 
tion to the issue which is in the balance in Europe 
to-day, and there are many more that vitally con- 
cern both the nations there and elsewhere in the 
world. They are more or less in the discussion stage 
now, but when settled they too will contribute not a 
little to the advancement of the race. There is the 
problem of capital and labor. It took real moral 
courage for a laborer years ago to oppose the social 
consciousness with respect to capital, and it takes 
moral courage for any laborer to-day to oppose his 
fellows in any plan they may have for their relief; 
it also takes moral courage of the same sort for any 
capitalist to oppose his fellow capitalists in any sug- 



98 Tsmg Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

gested measure for reform. It took moral courage 
for individuals here and there, when competition was 
the approved method for conducting business, to ad- 
vocate a change to what we call combination or co- 
operation to-day. Then, too, there is the temper- 
ance question which has advanced so rapidly during 
the last three years. When individuals at first began 
to oppose the social consciousness with reference to 
liquor, their position was hardly an enviable one. The 
opposition which they met was oftentimes of the bit- 
terest kind. None the less, to-day, with victory cast- 
ing its shadow before them, they are being recog- 
nized as real moral heroes, and we may well believe 
that their contribution to the social welfare of the 
world will be by no means an inconsiderable one. 
Then, too, there is the question of woman suffrage, 
white slavery, the social evil so called, and a large 
number of other issues, each of which constitutes a 
real moral issue, and we may rest assured that when 
they shall have been settled the social welfare will 
have been increased not a little. Morality, as it is 
frequently said, creates values, while the social con- 
sciousness conserves them, and that creating process 
is largely one of opposition to the conserving attitude 
of the social group as a whole. 

And now I am through for to-day. Have I proved 
progress to your satisfaction ? I am sure that I have 
not proved it in a deductive way, and, as I indicated 
at the beginning, I did not expect to prove cosmic 



The Problem of Progress 99 

progress, if there is anything of that sort. Still I 
hope that I have made it clear that change is one 
of the most fundamental aspects of the world as a 
whole, and that in the field of human affairs a change 
from simple relations to more complex relations may 
be interpreted as from a lower to a higher plane, and 
this may be designated properly as progress, follow- 
ing the example of the biologist in his special field. 
We have seen, too, that several prominent writers 
have expressed their belief in real social progress, 
and also that control is a fair test of that kind of 
progress. But throughout the entire course of hu- 
man progress there have been many definite issues 
involving an opposition between the individual con- 
sciousness and the social consciousness, and those 
very issues have been the index of a high type of 
morality. 



THE ETHICAL IDEAL 

IN the opening lecture of this series, I indicated 
that the Greek emphasis in the field of ethics was 
upon "virtue" and the "good," indeed, the "highest 
good." I also intimated that before the end of the 
series I should find it necessary to deal with the 
Greek point of view somewhat at length. It is that 
aspect of the entire subject that I plan to deal with 
more or less incidentally to-day. In the third lecture, 
also, I presented rather briefly the essential features 
of an ideal, indeed, of an ethical ideal, and gave the 
impression that I would have more to say on that 
topic before concluding the series. I had thought at 
first of dealing simply with the content of the ethical 
ideal, but on further reflection it has seemed to be 
wiser to include some of the wider aspects and impli- 
cations, since to confine ourselves to the content would 
narrow too much the range of our discussions. I 
may add, further, that the ideal may be treated either 
from an historical angle or from a constructive one, 
but it is the historical aspect that I plan to present 
on this occasion, while I shall postpone the construc- 

100 



The Ethical Ideal 101 

tive treatment until two weeks from to-day. The 
ethical ideal, then, from an historical angle is our 
topic for this hour. 

When we begin to speak of ideals, not a few peo- 
ple become decidedly critical. "Don't talk to us 
about ideals," they say. "Give us practice, give us 
conduct in the concrete. Ideals are too visionary al- 
together. They mean nothing in the practical affairs 
of life." So great a discrepancy has often appeared 
between ideals and the realization of them, or be- 
tween promise and fulfillment, we might say, that it 
seems better to many to dispense with ideals alto- 
gether. But when there is such a disharmony, gen- 
erally the reason is either that the individual no long- 
er believes firmly in the ideal he is credited with hold- 
ing, and so allows himself more liberty in his con- 
duct than his assumed ideal provides for, or the thing 
which subjects him to criticism is an element which 
that individual has never brought definitely within 
the scope of his ideal. In either of these cases there 
might be a wide divergence between ideal and con- 
duct, between theory and practice. I heard of a man 
several years ago who was very successful in busi- 
ness, and also a prominent member of a church. His 
activities during the week, however, did not square 
very well with his professions on Sunday. So great 
was this disharmony that one of his associates asked 
him on one occasion how he could be so pious on Sun- 
day and yet be so unscrupulous, as he was reported 



102 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

to be, in some of his business transactions. "Why," 
he replied, "there is no difficulty there. When I was 
a young man, I firmly determined never to let my 
religion interfere with my business." He had what 
have been called "thought-tight compartments" in 
his mind. The actions complained of, he had never 
brought in under the real sway of his apparent ideal. 
And, too, we must admit that it is exceedingly diffi- 
cult for any one to have a perfectly consistent scheme 
of life which would make provision for all the varying 
experiences that come. Perhaps only the highest and 
best philosophers have ever been successful in con- 
structing such logical systems and then holding them- 
selves rigidly to them. Still further, as implied a 
moment ago, one may come to a different understand- 
ing of one's original ideal, and seeing that some 
parts of it are not so obligatory as at first thought, 
such a one may allow his conduct to diverge some- 
what from the strict realization which that ideal 
demands. But aside from such discrepancies, there 
is generally a fairly close agreement between what a 
man thinks and what he does. We note first the 
various activities, which perhaps seem strange to us, 
but when we learn of the thought back of the acts, 
a real harmony between thought and act is very ap- 
parent. 

Down in Central Australia, as I indicated to two 
of my classes this morning, there are men almost as 
primitive as in the earliest days of the race. One 



The Ethical Ideal 103 

group of them is known as the "witchetty grub" 
group. 1 At certain seasons of the year, these men 
go apart from their usual habitation and subject 
themselves to various practices more or less in imi- 
tation of the witchetty grubs which constitute their 
food supply. They think that their acts will in- 
crease their food supply that season. So, too, when 
we consider the field of magic, which has been very 
widespread in early times and which continues in 
many parts of the world even at the present day. 
There is what is called "sympathetic magic," which 
means that if you can get possession of something 
that was once a part of an individual whom you wish 
to influence, as a lock of his hair or finger nail par- 
ings, you can work your will upon him. 2 Or if you 
have an enemy who is larger than you are, or who is 
at a distance where you can not get hold of him, 
you can make a wax image of him, and then by stick- 
ing pins or a knife into the image, or by melting it, 
you can work him harm. This is called "imitative 
magic." Then, again, it may seem very strange to 
us to see a man drive a nail into a tree without doing 
anything further. Upon inquiry, however, we learn 
that he thought that he could get rid of a toothache 
in that manner. This might be called "transference 
magic." Then, too, off to the southwest of us in 

1 Spencer and Gillen, The Native Tribes of Central Aus- 
tralia, pp. 170-179. 
" Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. II, pp. 16-23. 



104 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

India, they treat some diseases as follows : If a man 
happens to be sick of the jaundice, he goes to the 
medicine man of the tribe who repeats a few magical 
phrases, anoints the sick man with yellow clay, and 
then commands him to bathe. The thought is that 
the disease will disappear with the disappearance of 
the clay. 3 Furthermore, there are people who, when 
they have an enemy, hang themselves at the door of 
his house, thinking that their ghost will haunt him. 4 
We probably would hardly care to get even with an 
enemy in that way. But none the less there is the 
thought and the consequent act. Many other similar 
incidents might be mentioned, all indicating that there 
is a real connection between what people think and 
what they do. The discrepancy comes, as I have 
said, when the individual no longer cherishes the 
ideal in its original form, or perhaps has never 
brought all his actions to the touchstone of the ideal. 
Consequently, the protest against ideals and the em- 
phasis upon mere conduct are not so thoroughly jus- 
tified as might at first appear. 

But to come closer to the main topic of the hour. 
I may not at this time deal at length with all the 
ethical ideals which men have cherished and have 
sought to realize. I may, however, present the three 
leading ideals among the Greeks, which have been in- 

a Leuba, A Psychological Study of Religion, pp. 163-164. 

4 Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the Moral 
Ideas, Vol. II, p. 234. 






The Ethical Ideal 105 



fluential in various ways throughout the centuries of 
European history. In this way, too, I shall be deal- 
ing with the Greek conception of virtue and of the 
good. 

When we attempt to deal with ethical reflection 
among the Greeks, we are practically compelled to 
consider Socrates. In the earlier periods of Greek 
history, there were many isolated expressions about 
conduct, especially in the poems of Homer and in the 
sayings of the Gnomic poets, but there was no sys- 
tematic treatment of ethics until after Socrates' day. 
He himself was a curious individual. He was many- 
sided, and because of the variety of his interests and 
the range of his discussions his pupils interpreted 
him in many ways. These pupils, too, were a com- 
posite lot. There were Aristippus, Plato, Antisthe- 
nes, the aged Euripides, Chaerephon, the gay and 
youthful Alcibiades, and many others who found Soc- 
rates interesting and entertaining, and, due to their 
own characteristics in large measure, they were in- 
clined to interpret him very differently. And it was 
this difference in interpretation which produced the 
three leading Greek schools of ethics. Let us see. 

As I indicated a moment ago, one of the young 
men in the group surrounding Socrates was Aristip- 
pus. He had been brought up in the city of Cyrene 
on the northern coast of Africa. He belonged to a 
wealthy family and had known all the luxury and 
pleasure that the age afforded. Since he had heard of 



106 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

Socrates, probably through Protagoras, the great- 
est of the Sophists, he decided to go to Athens to 
see and hear the great teacher for himself. He did 
not, however, think it necessary to change from his 
early mode of life. Certain aspects of Socrates' life 
seemed to give him warrant for continuing his easy- 
going, pleasure-loving ways. After his master's 
death, he returned to Cyrene and established a school 
of his own which became known as the Cyrenaic 
school. The central principle which he emphasized 
was pleasure. In choosing among several possible 
courses of action the amount of probable pleasure 
should alone decide. Technically this kind of ethical 
theorizing is known as Hedonism. It is the same sort 
as that which I briefly suggested two weeks ago in 
the quotations from Omar Khayyam. Later, we find 
this general type of thought presented by Epicurus 
who taught at Athens from 306 to 271 B. C. Epi- 
curus, however, felt the need, to a certain extent, of 
a philosophical background which he secured by ap- 
propriating the general world-view of Democritus, 
which I briefly referred to in an earlier lecture. He 
also changed the teaching of Aristippus to the ex- 
tent that he laid emphasis upon the pleasures of a 
lifetime rather than of the fleeting moment, and also 
stressed the pleasures of the mind rather than those 
of the body. None the less, it was pleasure which 
served him as a criterion of conduct.' The most 
pleasure on the whole and in the long run was the 



The Ethical Ideal 107 

highest good for him, and for a man to incorporate 
the greatest amount of pleasure into his life was to 
be truly manly and thoroughly virtuous. Not to fol- 
low such a course was to fail in virtue. These are 
the essential features of this system, and all, indeed, 
that we need to consider at this time. I may add, 
however, that if we regard the philosophic back- 
ground obtained from Democritus as a naturalistic 
type, which would certainly be a fair way of charac- 
terizing it, then it is not surprising that this kind of 
ethical theorizing should have been revived in Euro- 
pean thought during the last three or four centuries, 
since there have been not a few naturalistic interpre- 
tations of the world in recent years in Europe and 
America. 

Now, this type of ethical theory or kind of ethical 
ideal has been characterized as individualistic or 
egoistic in the ancient world, and on that account, 
since it was an ideal, we should need to regard it as 
ethical, but since it emphasized the pleasure of the 
individual, we should need to rate it rather low, in 
consequence of the stress that I have laid on social 
welfare as the test of what is strictly ethical. In the 
modern world, however, it has been largely altruistic, 
and on that account it would rise in the scale of 
ideals. None the less it has various other defects. 
It is a one-sided view of life. A human being is more 
than a mere pleasure-loving animal. Then, too, as 
we consider the entire development of animal life up 



108 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

to and including mankind, there has gradually arisen 
that which within the limits of humanity we call 
reason. This has been of incalculable value in the 
genesis and further elaboration of civilization, and 
if so, why should one not make use of it in the field 
which we call ethical? To make pleasure alone the 
criterion of conduct is to neglect one of the most 
potent factors in the advancement of the race. This, 
as it seems to me, is one of the strongest arguments 
against pure hedonism. It is also true, as pointed 
out by many writers, that hedonism has not been able 
to dispense with the use of reason, although such 
procedure was contradictory of its fundamental prine- 
ciple. The historical course of this type of ethical 
theory has been toward a larger and larger appro- 
priation of its opposite principle, viz., reason. It 
was only in this way that Epicurus could emphasize 
the pleasures of a lifetime rather than the pleasures 
of the moment. Pleasure in and of itself gave no 
warrant for any such discrimination. The hedon- 
istic principle, pure and simple, is tyrannous; it is 
immediate. We may not calculate before and after. 
It is the immediate moment that is superlatively 
urgent. Pleasure as such knows nothing else. Here, 
then, is one of the classical types of ethical theorizing 
in the western world, or, in other words, an ethical 
ideal which not a few, first and last, have sought to 
realize. Let us consider next its historical foil. 
Another man who listened to Socrates and caught 



The Ethical Ideal 109 

an inspiration from the master for his own life's pro- 
gram was Antisthenes, whom I mentioned but a mo- 
ment or two ago. This man was especially impressed 
by Socrates' complete self-mastery, his indifference 
to heat and cold, hunger and thirst. It is reported 
of him that he wore practically the same kind of 
clothing both in summer and in winter. When he 
went on a military expedition one winter he walked 
barefoot over the snow and ice as if walking through 
the streets of Athens in the summertime. Thus Antis- 
thenes, when he began to teach by himself, laid em- 
phasis upon indifference to the smiles or frowns of 
Fortune. He went so far, indeed, that he manifested 
a similar indifference to the refinements of civilized 
life. Life according to nature became his funda- 
mental tenet, which meant at times an almost total 
disregard of the amenities and niceties of life. So 
much opposed, too, was Antisthenes to the view of the 
Hedonists that he is reported to have said that he 
"would rather be insane than pleased." This type 
of ethical interpretation was taken up by Zeno of 
Citium, a city on the Island of Cyprus. He taught 
in Athens from about the year 300 to 264 B. C. He 
did not, however, hold absolutely by the teaching of 
the group which Antisthenes had started. His 
thought was modified somewhat by other views. He, 
also, as Epicurus had done, developed a world-view 
as a background for his teaching. For him the 
whole universe was permeated by reason and some of 



110 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

this reason was in each and every human being. He 
used the expression, "Life according to nature," 
which had been emphasized by the preceding group, 
but with an entirely different meaning. Life accord- 
ing to nature meant for Zeno a life according to one's 
rational nature. This was the highest and best in 
each man, and if one would be virtuous, if one would 
reach the highest good possible, one would let this 
reason expand and become more and more dominant 
in one's entire life. Everything else was of but little 
worth. The passions, feelings, desires, and emotions 
should all be rooted out so that reason, pure and 
simple, might flow through a man and his life become 
exclusively a life of reason. 

In its general features, this ideal had not a little 
to recommend it. It was decidedly altruistic and 
stressed particularly the brotherhood of all men. Its 
influence was decisive in the final abolishment of slav- 
ery in the old Roman Empire, and modern interna- 
tional law, when it began under Grotius, had the 
world-view of this type of thought as its foundation. 
None the less, like Hedonism, this is but a one-sided 
interpretation of life. If we think of the latter as 
being better in the course of human social develop- 
ment, then reason has more to recommend it to favor- 
able consideration than Hedonism has. But it is a 
psychological impossibility for any human being to 
lead a life of pure reason. If there is one thing more 
than another that modern psychology emphasizes, it 



The Ethical Ideal 111 

is the unity of the mental life. It is not a "faculty" 
psychology which is at the front to-day. Instead, 
every complete state of consciousness is thought of 
as having an awareness suffusing it, a feeling of agree- 
able or disagreeable, and a suggestion of activity. 
We could not, if we would, live a life of pure reason. 
Still further, as various writers point out, the his- 
torical development of this type of ethical theorizing, 
which is usually called "Rigorism" or "Rationalism," 
has been away from the extreme form in which it orig- 
inated. The tendency has been, with exceptions here 
and there, to make some provision for the feelings. 
Reason continued to give the form to the ethical life, 
but the rich human content was recognized as coming 
from the feelings. It was only so, as not a few dis- 
covered, that life could receive a satisfactory evalua- 
tion. 

Here, then, we have two of the great historical 
ethical ideals worked out among the Greeks, which, 
as is apparent, were originally diametrically opposed 
to each other. None the less, neither maintained it- 
self strictly in its primitive form. Each tended to 
lean more or less toward its opposite, or perhaps we 
would better say, its complement. We are not, how- 
ever, confined to these two. There is another ideal 
which came from the Greek philosophical workshop, 
and to a consideration of that we will turn at once. 

It has been said, and not without a large measure 
of truth, that there have been four superlatively 



1158 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

great minds in the European world, viz., Plato and 
Aristotle in the ancient world, and Kant and Hegel 
in the modern world. The first two have given their 
ethical views in connection with their far-reaching 
philosophies. In brief, they are as follows: Plato 
had his peculiar view of the world as a whole. He 
thought of a world of Being from which the souls of 
men come at birth, and to which they return at death. 
The body is the prison-house of the soul, and the 
highest good for any individual is to be freed from 
the body and to return to the world whence it came. 
This for Plato was the sum/mum bonum par excel- 
lence. But he also conceived of another summwm 
bonwri, if we may disregard the paradox, and in dis- 
cussing it he dealt with the two concepts of pleasure 
and of reason which we have just considered. In his 
dialogue, "The Philebus," the main discussion deals 
with the problem whether pleasure or reason may be 
taken as a sufficient guide for life, and the upshot of 
the devious turns which the argument takes is that 
neither may be taken in that way. Instead, the vic- 
tor in the contest is harmony or due proportion, but 
none the less reason is said to be nearer the victor 
than pleasure. Indeed, it is maintained that reason 
is ten thousand times nearer the victor than pleasure, 
while the latter is put at the foot of the list of several 
other elements which enter into the complete life. 
Again, in his "Republic," where he gives his theory 
of the state, Plato gives us the suggestion of a reason- 



The Ethical Ideal 118 

controlled life as the ideal. In this work, political 
theory, psychology, and ethics are closely interwoven, 
but the outcome of the discussion is that righteous- 
ness or justice, which constitutes the leading motive, 
may be expected only in that state in which there are 
wise rulers, a courageous and well trained soldiery, 
and an industrious artisan class. These classes in 
the state are analogous to the virtues of wisdom, 
courage, and self-control or temperance in the indi- 
vidual, which are based respectively upon the ration- 
al soul, the spirited part, and the desiring part of 
the self. While I may not take the time to present 
Plato's thought in detail, the opinion stands out very 
prominently in the discussions throughout this dia- 
logue that reason should be the controlling factor in 
the state, and that when the life of the state is regu- 
lated in this way there will be righteousness or justice 
within its borders. In brief, then, we may say that 
this secondary ideal or summum bonum presented by 
Plato is not a life of reason nor is it a life of pleas- 
ure, but rather a reason-controlled life, a life, indeed, 
in which pleasure among other elements is admitted, 
but always under rational control. 

When we consider Aristotle's teaching, we find a 
good deal like the teaching of his master, but there 
are also variations. Aristotle, no less than Plato, 
had two summa bona, but developed in a different 
manner. Aristotle laid emphasis upon pure reason in 
man. This it is which especially distinguishes men 



114 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

from all creatures in the animal world. Consequently, 
the highest good in a strict sense is for a man to give 
himself up unreservedly to pure thought. In so far 
as reason functions in the individual without any 
hindrance from the rest of the self, will that person 
be living the highest, indeed, the divine life. But 
no human being can lead such a life all the time, and 
most people lead such a life practically not at all. 
Consequently, Aristotle developed a secondary sum- 
mum bonum. He arranged a list of virtues, such as 
Courage, Temperance, Liberality, Good Temper, and 
so on, each of which stands as a mean between an ex- 
cess and a deficiency. Courage is the mean between 
cowardice and foolhardiness, liberality between stin- 
giness and prodigality, good temper between a lack 
of proper spirit and irascibility, and so on through 
the list. All these means are determined by the rea- 
son. This is quite clear, although Aristotle did not 
indicate in the works that have come down to us just 
how the reason operates within this field. Thus we 
have again a reason-controlled life set forth as an 
ideal. A life of pure reason was Aristotle's highest 
good in the strict interpretation of that term, but he 
also emphasized a reason-controlled life as the best 
attainable for most people all of the time, and even 
for the select few for most of the time. 

Of course, we may not accept such a view simply 
upon the authority of the philosophers who fash- 
ioned it, viz., Plato and Aristotle, but what about 



The Ethical Ideal 115 

the inherent reasonableness of such an ideal? We 
have seen that the other two great historical ideals 
were not able to maintain themselves in their extreme 
positions. Each tended to lean in the direction of 
its opposite, and this very leaning is toward the mid- 
dle position struck out by both Plato and Aristotle, 
two of the master minds in the entire field of Euro- 
pean thought. For myself, I frankly confess that 
the general form of this middle course seems to be 
the highest that we have yet been able to evolve. A 
reason-controlled life. Not a life of pure reason, 
and not a life of pleasure pure and simple, or per- 
haps not so simple, but a life controlled by the rea- 
son, but making provision for pleasure and other ele- 
ments as the occasion might offer. 

This particular type of ethical theorizing has been 
known as Eudaemonism, but unfortunately that term 
has sometimes been confused with Hedonism and 
sometimes treated as equivalent to Happiness. 
Neither of these interpretations, however, does jus- 
tice to the view. It certainly is not pleasure in the 
sense meant by Aristippus, nor is it happiness in 
the shallow sense often implied by that term. Conse- 
quently, some writers suggest that we should return 
to the original meaning of the Greek term, which was 
"good fortune" or "welfare." This was its meaning 
in the time of Homer, and it was frequently used in 
this sense in the time of Plato and Aristotle. If we 
follow this suggestion, we can call it the welfare 



116 Tsincf Hua Lectures on Ethics 

theory, and indeed we should not be far wrong, if 
we should add the word "social," for both Plato and 
Aristotle laid emphasis upon the life of the individual 
within the state. This was apparent in what I pre- 
sented from Plato's Republic, and with Aristotle a 
consideration of the state and the development of the 
ethical life of the individual went hand in hand. These 
were but two branches of a single subject. A reason- 
controlled life for the individual, and the individual, 
too, in the state, warranting our calling it a life 
directed toward social welfare, would come very close 
to a proper interpretation of this highest of ideals 
as presented by these two famous Greek thinkers. 5 

There is still another field of thought which, I 
think, will contribute somewhat to our general dis- 
cussion. Just as in the second lecture I turned first 
to philosophy and then to sociology to determine the 
field of ethics, so I am now inclined to turn to sociol- 
ogy to gain such additional light as we may upon 
ideals of human conduct. And here I shall refer 
again to the teaching of Professor Giddings of Co- 
lumbia University, if you will permit me to do so. 
I make these frequent quotations from his works be- 
cause he has helped me to see into some of these mat- 
6 The works which have contributed to my discussion of these 
Greek ideals are too numerous to mention. Seth's Study of 
Ethical Principles was the ground-breaker, but that could not 
be regarded as responsible for all I have said, whether good 
or bad. 



The Ethical Ideal 117 

ters better than many others whose works I have be- 
come acquainted with. 

In his work on "Inductive Sociology," Professor 
Giddings has said that there have been four great 
ideals of conduct in the history of the race. 6 The 
first of these is that of the "Forceful" man. Such a 
man has been tall, strong of limb, and powerful. He 
was Saul, towering head and shoulders above the 
other men of his day. Such a man always stood as 
a bulwark of defense in time of need; he did valiant 
deeds in war and was successful in the chase. He is 
the soldier and the sailor of to-day, the policeman, 
the fireman, and many others whose brawn and cour- 
age are at a premium. He is the football hero on 
many a college gridiron. But when the war was over, 
when the chase was at an end, another type of indi- 
vidual came to the front as the hero, but it was a 
heroism of a different kind. When all had gathered 
around the festive board, the new hero was the one 
who could tell the most interesting story, sing the 
best song, or make the best speech. This is the 
"Convivial" type, represented to-day by the jolly, 
happy-go-lucky, hail-fellow-well-met; it is the type 
of the successful after dinner speaker. No doubt 
you have all been present at Banquets in honor of 
some football team, and the fellow who was the main- 
stay of the team on the field, now stutters and stam- 
mers, grows red and pale alternately, stands first on 

fl Pp. 82-83. 



118 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

one foot and then on the other, and can hardly say 
three intelligible sentences. But then some little fel- 
low, rather insignificant in appearance, who perhaps 
hardly knows a touchdown from a home run, delights 
the whole company with his ready wit. He becomes 
the hero of this new situation. 

But there came a time in the early community 
when some of the wiseacres perceived that these hap- 
py-go-lucky fellows often became a drag upon the 
community, and consequently there developed the 
"Austere" type, or we might say the Puritan type. 
This type did not begin in old New England. His 
ancestors are much farther back in the past. These 
long-faced individuals perceived that when there was 
a drought and famine, these gay young singers, story 
tellers, and genial ne'er-do-wells had to be supported 
by the rest of the community. Consequently, maxims 
of prudence multiplied, and many rather innocent 
forms of amusement were placed under the ban. This 
type is still with us, but it is too familiar to need 
further illustration. The fourth and last type which 
Professor Giddings discusses is what he calls the 
"Rationally Conscientious" type. This is a kind of 
resultant from the other three. Individuals of this 
type are inclined to keep themselves in good physical 
condition through proper exercise, but they do not 
carry their devotion to athletics in any form to an 
excess ; they are courageous when real courage is de- 
manded, but they are never foolhardy. They also 



The Ethical Ideal 119 

enter into the various rounds of social activities, but 
do not go too far; they avoid making fools of them- 
selves in the pleasures in which they indulge. They 
do not attempt to lead lives of pure reason, but all 
proposed courses of action are brought to the bar of 
reason. They have a deep sense of duty, and often 
shoulder heavy loads of responsibility, but they do 
not let duty play the part of the tyrant in their lives. 
They recognize their limitations, play their part in 
our complex social life to the extent of their ability, 
and leave the appraisal of their deeds to posterity. 
They are rationally conscientious, but not conscien- 
tious beyond the bounds of reason. 

If we compare this fourth type with the ideal of 
the reason-controlled life, we shall find that the two 
are practically the same. Thus philosophy and soci- 
ology are virtually agreed as to the form of human 
conduct which will function best in rather high grade 
society. The different ideals of the sociologist are 
adjusted to the different levels which are always 
found in any community, but in so far as intelligence 
increases in a given community will there be a ten- 
dency for the rationally conscientious type to in- 
crease. Somewhat the same may be said with refer- 
ence to the ideal presented from Plato and Aristotle. 
Since that is the reason-controlled life, the number 
of its representatives will increase with the increase 
of trained reason among any people. We may not 
say that these two ideals, one from philosophy and 



120 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

the other from sociology, are the superlatively best 
among men, but they seem to be the best on the for- 
mal side yet developed within the race. 

At the next hour, I shall attempt to give somewhat 
in detail the constructive side of the ideal. This will 
involve dwelling upon the content which we indi- 
vidually would be inclined to give to the bare form of 
the ideal presented at this time. 



VI 

THE ETHICAL IDEAL 
(Concluded) 

DURING the last hour we were together, I pre- 
sented the ethical ideal, for the most part, from 
an historical angle. I sketched the three leading 
ideals among the Greeks, and indicated that the 
"reason-controlled life" might be regarded as the 
highest that we know on the formal side. I also said 
that on this occasion I should need to deal with the 
content side of the ideal. That is our leading prob- 
lem for to-day. None the less, in the first few min- 
utes of the hour, I shall need to consider a matter 
to which I referred in the first lecture. I suggested 
then that there would be a universality attaching to 
the ideal that I was planning to present, and it is 
this aspect of the entire discussion that I wish to 
deal with now. 

Very frequently in ethical discussions the asser- 
tion is made or implied that the requirements decided 
upon are obligatory upon all men. With the growth 
of evolutionary thought, however, it has become in- 
creasingly difficult to universalize in the old way. As 

121 



122 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

we saw in one of the earlier lectures of this series, 
there are different degrees of social development in 
the world taken as a whole. When we take a wide- 
ranging view, we find that culture shades off from 
the kind of life lived by the residents of the Back Bay 
district of Boston to trie decidedly primitive modes 
of life that characterize the Fiji Islanders. And 
indeed, as we have seen, even within the limits of the 
same community there are pronounced differences in 
culture. Still further, one of the most assured re- 
sults of modern psychological research, as pointed 
out by Professor Angell of the University of Chicago, 
are the fundamental differences among men. 1 How 
could we, then, insist that whatever regulations we 
lay down for ourselves should be equally binding 
upon all sorts and conditions of men? As I indicated 
in the third lecture of this course, an ethical ideal 
is a complex mental construct which we fashion by 
fusing together the especially good features selected 
from our own past experience and from the experi- 
ence of the race, in so far as history presents it to 
us. How could such a complex thing be the ideal of 
all people? The difficulty which this question raises 
is a logical one, and it is really a logical difficulty 
which underlies all that I have just said, but although 
I may weary you with an excursion into the field of 
logic, I must say a word or two about it. 

There is a principle in logic known as the "inten- 
1 Chapters from Modern Psychology, pp. 155-173. 



The Ethical Ideal 123 

sion and extension of terms." There is the meaning 
which a term has, and there are also the objects 
meant by it, but in a series of terms the increase of 
the intension or meaning results in the decrease of 
the extension or number of objects meant. If I say 
"man," I mean all the objects in the world that have 
the physical characteristics which distinguish man 
from the merely animal world. If, however, I say 
"white man," I have increased the meaning of my 
term, but I have at the same time reduced the num- 
ber of objects to which the term would apply. Still 
further, the term "Englishman" would apply to a 
much smaller number of individuals, and "Oxford 
graduate," because it would have a still greater mean- 
ing, would apply only to a rather small, select group. 
If, now, I begin with the term "Oxford graduate," 
and then proceed to "Englishman," "white man," 
and "man," I continually decrease the meaning of the 
term, but increase the number of objects designated. 
Since this is true, if we are to have an ideal, as I 
suggested a moment ago, that shall be obligatory 
upon the entire race, either that ideal will have but 
little content, so as to meet the actual condition of 
very primitive people, and such an ideal would be of 
almost no value, or else with a complex ideal we should 
have to wait until all people might reach a high plane 
of culture. There is, too, a third alternative, but I 
will deal with that later. 

Of course, it might be objected to the second al- 



124 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ternative which I have presented that even if all the 
people in the world should ultimately reach the same 
high plane of cultural development, they would not, 
therefore, necessarily be the same in their outlook 
upon life. This depends in part upon the way we de- 
fine the term "same." If we are exceedingly nice in 
our interpretation, we may find that there is no such 
thing as sameness at all. Any object we may notice 
is not exactly the same from moment to moment, and 
our states of consciousness are notoriously never 
twice alike in every detail. For, indeed, if they should 
be alike in every other respect, there would still be a 
difference in the time of their occurrence. If, how- 
ever, we are less finical in our interpretation and are 
willing to admit approximations, there will be a de- 
cidedly good basis for assuming considerable like- 
ness in the views of people who are upon about the 
same plane of culture. A dozen students who attend 
the same preparatory school and then pass through 
the same college and university, taking practically 
the same courses of study, will have a very similar 
way of viewing the world and of reacting to the prob- 
lems which they face in life. Of course, they will not 
think exactly alike in every respect, but there will 
be more unanimity of opinion among them than 
there would be between them and the simplest sav- 
ages. This is evident, too, in the case of any nation, 
as I indicated in another connection earlier in this 
series of lectures. The people of any country are 



The Ethical Ideal 125 

more alike in their thinking and general outlook upon 
life, than are the peoples of different countries. So, 
if the time should ever come, although I do not think 
that it will come very soon, when all the peoples of 
the world should be upon the same plane of culture, 
we might expect that the complex ideal of conduct 
developed by them would have practically the same 
binding force upon all, but with the world as it is to- 
day, how can anything but the simplest requirements 
be laid upon all alike? This is a serious question, 
but I think that the third alternative which I sug- 
gested a moment ago will answer it, and give the de- 
gree of universality which I think is the only kind 
possible. 

If we should construct an ethical ideal, as I sug- 
gested a moment ago, by selecting from the good in 
the entire world as history reveals it, we would, of 
course, have a very complex thing, but would there 
not be elements in it which people on other planes of 
development would recognize as their own and so 
feel binding upon themselves? To that extent the 
ideal would be theirs also. Among the simplest sav- 
ages, there is a certain amount of kindness shown to 
the nearest kin. 2 Could we ourselves leave such an 
element out of the ideal which we might construct as 
our own? To that extent, then, would the savage 
have a stake in our ethical claim. So, too, when we 

"Hobhouse, Morals m Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. I, p. 348; 
McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 69. 



126 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

turn to the barbarous plane. 3 If you and I should 
ever enter the tent of an Arab sheik, our lives would 
be safe, even though we might be total strangers to 
him. A certain amount of kindness and of consider- 
ation is shown to strangers even by the barbarians. 
Could we omit hospitality from our own ideal? To 
that extent, also, would our ideal be the ideal of the 
barbarian. In the early civilizations of Egypt and 
of Babylonia there was a certain amount of empha- 
sis placed upon the binding character of contracts, 
and an effort was made to mete out even-handed jus- 
tice. 4 These are elements in the ideal of the most 
highly civilized peoples in the world to-day. It must 
be evident, then, I think, that such an ideal as I have 
been working toward in this course can be regarded 
as the ideal of the most highly developed people in 
the world at the present time, but also, in part at 
any rate, the ideal of people in the past and in the 
present who may not be upon the highest cultural 
plane, but who might, none the less, perceive in our 
ideal some things which they themselves approve. 
To that extent the ideal of the most cultured, con- 
structed as I have in part suggested and as I intend 
to suggest further, would be the ideal of all. It 
would be the ideal in its fullness for the people who 
might deliberately construct it, and it would be the 

* Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. I, p. 
348. 
4 Hobhouse, Ibid., pp. 84-85, 179-190. 



The Ethical Ideal 127 

ideal potentially of all people who might be develop- 
ing in the same direction, although it would be theirs 
actually only to the extent that they might see in it 
elements which they were accustomed to approve in 
their own particular environment. Let us turn, now, 
to the special content of such an ideal, but always, 
from the angle of the formal treatment presented at 
the last hour. 

In attempting to deal with the content side of the 
ideal, as I have it in mind, I think that it will help, 
if I present the matter, as I have been accustomed to 
for several years, with reference to my other students 
in America. Later I will treat the ideal from what I 
conceive to be your special angle. For a few min- 
utes, then, please consider yourselves a group of 
American students, and I will proceed as I usually do 
with them. 

When we seek to do justice to the ethical ideal in 
its entirety, we find it necessary to consider both the 
physical and the spiritual aspects, using the term 
"spiritual" in a broad sense. The old Romans had a 
saying, mens sana sano m corpore, a sound mind in 
a sound body. That was practically the ideal, too, 
of the Greeks taken as a whole. If we desire to have 
a well rounded ideal to-day, we can do no better than 
to follow their example and give attention to these 
two sides of our complete self. What shall I say, 
then, with reference to our physical development? It 
is true, of course, that there have been many indi- 



128 Tsktg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

viduals, frail in body and racked with pain, who have 
made valuable contributions to the welfare of the 
world, but we must always regard them as the excep- 
tions. Other things being equal, we may expect a 
desirable development of the spiritual side of our 
lives, using that term, as I have said, in a broad 
sense, in correlation with a good physical foundation. 
We have already seen that an increasing valuation 
placed upon human life is one of the leading criteria 
of social progress. Not to give sufficient attention to 
our physical selves is to fail of the proper apprecia- 
tion of this growing valuation placed upon life. Then, 
too, the "rationally conscientious" ideal, which we 
found at the last hour is practically identical with 
the "reason-controlled" life, points in this same di- 
rection. To despise the body, or to neglect the body 
would be a cardinal flaw in one's ideal. 

Let me say a word, too, at this point with refer- 
ence to the instincts. Very frequently writers on 
ethics distinguish between instinctive morality and a 
higher or rational sort. Such a distinction, how- 
ever, opens the way for a wrong attitude toward the 
instincts. If the more rational type of conduct is 
higher, why may we not neglect the instinctive alto- 
gether? Such an attitude of mind seems at times 
actually to occur. Hut the instincts constituted the 
highest type of behavior at an early period in the 
development of the race, and we could not dispense 
with them entirely at present. When one distin- 



The Ethical Ideal 129 

guishes, however, between instinctive morality and 
rational morality, as just indicated, some individuals 
either refuse altogether to follow their instincts, or 
else feel that they are abandoning or violating their 
higher ideal, if, perchance, instinctive activity 
should at any time gain the right of way. But the 
ideal, as I am developing it, takes the instincts up 
into itself. There are times when the instincts 
should not be restrained and we should not feel on 
such occasions that our ideal has been in any sense 
lowered. The rational element in the ideal makes 
provision for them, although it is true that they 
should be under proper control. To let our instincts 
run away with us would be to fail in a just appre- 
ciation of the ideal, but to disregard them altogether 
would also mean to fail in like manner. Like a 
trained pointer, they should always be at heel, ex- 
cept at such times as reason might permit them to 
function. 

When, now, we turn from the physical aspect of 
the ideal to the spiritual side, what shall we select for 
the content of the ideal? Here I think that we can 
do no better than to consider that list of virtues from 
the teaching of Aristotle which I touched upon at the 
last hour. He gives in that list twelve virtues, some 
of which perhaps we might not be inclined to intro- 
duce into the ideal, and yet I doubt if we could very 
well avoid including many of them. In considering 
them, however, we should need to test them individual- 



180 Tsvng Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ly in accordance with the principle of social welfare. 
Would such or such an element make for the social 
welfare? If it would, then we might feel wholly 
justified in introducing it; if not, we should need to 
reject it. Let us consider several of these elements 
one by one and see to what extent we might feel in- 
clined to follow Aristotle in this list. 5 

The first virtue which Aristotle mentions is "cour- 
age." Could we very well omit such an element from 
the ideal which we intend to construct for ourselves ? 
Very likely not many of us will have opportunities 
to display courage as would the "forceful man" whom 
I discussed at the last hour, but could we fail to in- 
clude this element? Certainly we would not think of 
introducing its opposite "cowardice." But courage 
is not always closely connected with the physical self, 
although we usually think of it in that way. There 
is also what we may call spiritual courage. This is 
often termed "moral courage," but it seems to me 
that we might better call it spiritual courage which 
leads to specific moral activity. Since I have already 
emphasized the opposition between the individual 
consciousness and the social consciousness, I could 
not fail to include in the ideal such spiritual courage. 
It takes just this kind of courage to oppose the 
group with which one happens to be connected, and 
yet such opposition, as we have seen, is a very neces- 

6 Welldon, The Ethics of Aristotle, pp. 48-53, and passim. 
Cf. Wallace, Outlines of the Philosophy of Aristotle, p. 100. 



The Ethical Ideal 131 

sary factor in social progress. I suspect that we 
would all be inclined to add this element. 

Then there is "temperance" which Aristotle pre- 
sents. Rather unfortunately, this term is associated 
in America almost exclusively with abstinence from 
alcoholic liquors. It undoubtedly means that but 
more besides. It suggests temperance in eating, in 
action, in thought, and in word. Another term which 
is frequently used as an equivalent for "temperance" 
in translating Aristotle at this point is "self-con- 
trol." This at once brings us into line with the fun- 
damental character of the ideal as outlined at our last 
hour together. A reason-controlled life would natur- 
ally suggest control in these other matters just men- 
tioned. 

Another element which appears in the list fur- 
nished by this Greek philosopher is "liberality." 
Whenever this term is mentioned, we naturally think 
of those who are blessed with an abundance of the 
good things of this life, and consequently we are in- 
clined to apply it to them rather than to ourselves. 
But liberality is not restricted in its meaning to the 
large giver. It is more the attitude of mind that 
is meant. When there is an appeal made to our 
purse-strings, we should calculate the extent of our 
resources and give accordingly. The free, generous 
spirit back of, or evidenced by, the act is the essen- 
tial. But a word of caution is needed here. When 
appeals are made to us, as they so frequently are, 



182 T skiff Hua Lectures on Ethics 

by the beggars on the street, it cloes not follow that 
we should always give. Liberality would not neces- 
sarily be evidenced in that way. Students of society 
tell us that it is far better to investigate the case, 
find out the cause of the poverty, and then remedy 
the conditions, rather than to confirm the beggar in 
his ways by the modicum we toss him. 

There is, also, another meaning lurking in this 
term "liberality." The root idea is freedom, which 
may well be interpreted as freedom from prejudice, 
from narrowness, and from mere tradition, or in 
other words a liberal attitude of mind. Several years 
ago I heard culture defined as "the ability to recog- 
nize and the disposition to approve that which is 
excellent wherever found." With proper changes in 
the terminology, that definition might well be used in 
connection with liberality. We are liberal in our 
thought when we have the ability to recognize good 
thinking in another, even though we may not agree 
with the conclusions, and when we have the disposi- 
tion to approve that thought as good solid thinking, 
without necessarily being inclined to accept it in toto 
or to follow out all its implications. There has been 
altogether too much narrowness in the world in this 
respect. We should not attempt to browbeat one 
another in our thinking, nor be ready to convince 
with the club. We have reached a high plane of 
ethical development when we can introduce into our 
ideal liberality in this sense. 



The Ethical Ideal 188 

Aristotle also suggests "right ambition" and "good 
temper." Not infrequently, we are cautioned against 
having any ambition at all. But an individual with- 
out any ambition would be a very neutral factor in 
society. He would belong in the ranks of the "ho- 
boes" and so-called "weary Willies." Social prog- 
ress has not come about through such individuals. 
What Aristotle warns against is seeking to aggran- 
dize ourselves at the expense of our neighbors, using 
them as tools for our own welfare, exploiting them 
for our own personal advantage. Right ambition, 
however, means taking one's own proper measure, 
and then seeking to realize the highest and best of 
which that individual is capable in the interests of 
society as a whole. As for "good temper," not much 
need be said. Its value as a virtue is quite obvious. 
We certainly would not care to introduce its oppo- 
site, a quarrelsome, surly, sour temper into our ideal. 
None the less, an exhibition of temper, provided the 
occasion might demand it, would not be out of har- 
mony with the ideal. It is said that Dr. Arnold, the 
famous headmaster of Rugby, used to declare that 
he never felt sure of the stability of a boy's character 
until that boy hated a lie. One might, indeed, avoid 
lying, or even discountenance it in another, but until 
a boy showed his hostility to a lie by an actual mani- 
festation of temper, the good old doctor did not 
think him fully established in his ways. 

There is also "friendly civility" in this list. You 



134* Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

can readily enough see what is meant by this. You 
know the man with a cheery greeting, a friendly 
smile, and a warm, hearty grasp of the hand. Such 
a one makes friends wherever he goes. The lack of 
such an element on some occasions makes us value 
it all the more when we do encounter it. Last sum- 
mer, in a large hotel in Tokyo, Japan, I saw a man 
wearing a uniform which I thought I recognized. 
The color alone was strange. In what I thought was 
a friendly manner, I said to the man wearing it, "I 
think that I know that uniform, all but the color." 
"It is the regular color," was his reply. That is all 
the information I received from him. Later, I 
learned that the color of the uniform he was wearing 
is the regulation color for full dress in summer time. 
I suspect, however, that no one of you would say 
that he gave evidence of friendly civility. 

Aristotle also includes in his list "sincerity" and 
"modesty." The former of these two words almost 
sums up in itself all the other virtues. It means 
honesty of purpose, genuineness, lack of deceit, frank- 
ness, nothing underhanded, without guile. It has in 
it the essence of gentle breeding. It might well serve 
as the foundation for the other virtues. When this 
is lacking, we may regard the other virtues men- 
tioned in the list with suspicion; when this is pres- 
ent, we may have more confidence in the rest. As to 
"modesty," we may say that it means strictly that 
we should respect the privacy of others just as we 



The Ethical Ideal 135 

wish them to respect our privacy. It may also be 
taken in the sense of being unassuming, rather than 
boastful and showing an overweening confidence in 
our own ability. It does not, however, mean excessive 
humility, whether of the Uriah Heep type or not. 
One should take a just estimate of one's self. We 
should not think too highly of ourselves, nor should 
we belittle ourselves. Modesty in this sense suggests 
having a due regard for one's place among men. It 
avoids servile flattery and self -depreciation, just as 
it gives no place to pride of intellect and swaggering 
boastfulness. 

The last virtue that Aristotle insists upon, passing 
over several others, is "just resentment." There are 
some people who seem never to get angry at any 
thing. They impress us as having a "cotton string 
for a backbone," as one speaker has put it. There 
are occasions, however, when hot indignation should 
flash forth. Such explosions are good for the indi- 
vidual himself and for the one who happens to be 
their target. They clear the atmosphere as a thun- 
der storm does in summer. There have been times 
during the last three years when my own nation 
seemed to be lacking in just resentment. Happily 
that time is now past, and sooner or later, the sooner 
the better, the nation that trifled with the dignity of 
the United States and trampled upon her self-respect 
will learn that the just resentment of a peace-loving 
nation may not be scorned with impunity. 



136 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

Here, then, are the virtues which Aristotle empha- 
sized. 6 I do not suggest that we should incorporate 
them all into our ideal simply because of the eminence 
of this Greek thinker. As I have suggested before, 
we need to scrutinize them very carefully one by one 
and then select in accordance with the principle of 
social welfare. I feel very confident, however, that 
if we do deal with the list in this way, we shall not 
omit them all from the ideal which we construct for 
ourselves. 

At this point in my discussion of this problem 
with my students in America, I suggest that we turn 
to the teaching of the Hebrew people. There has 
been a tendency in recent years in the West to neg- 
lect this side. The historical reason for such aloof- 
ness would not be far to seek. But such an attitude 
is unscientific. One of the first steps in any scien- 
tific enterprise is analysis. If, then, we analyze 
European and American civilization, we shall find a 
large element in it contributed by the Hebrews, in 
addition to what has been inherited from the Greeks 
and the Romans. To neglect this would be to fail 
in our attempt to construct an ethical ideal at least 
in the spirit of science. 

Even a cursory survey of the Hebrew teaching re- 
veals certain requirements called the "Command- 

6 In the discussion, I have not confined myself closely to 
Aristotle's teaching. I have simply taken the several virtues 
from his list and have presented them in my own way, but not, 
I think, out of harmony with his general thought. 



The Ethical Ideal 137 

ments." Thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not 
steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt 
not covet, and so on through the list. These regu- 
lations grew up out of the Hebrew life. They were 
regarded as essential for social welfare. In so far 
as such requirements make for social welfare to-day, 
and they certainly seem to tend in that direction, 
they might very well be introduced into our ideal. 
The test, also, in connection with this list is the same 
as that already applied in connection with the teach- 
ing of the Greek philosopher. Then, too, there is the 
teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest among 
the Jews. Much of his teaching has* become incor- 
porated into the social consciousness of the western 
world. We may not say, however, that all that he 
taught is incorporated at the present day. He 
taught that if a man should smite you on the right 
cheek, you should turn your left cheek to him. Cer- 
tainly the nations of the West do not follow that 
teaching. Whether they ever will follow that par- 
ticular injunction, we can not say. Possibly many 
elements of. his teaching, not yet accepted in the 
West, will be incorporated ultimately into the social 
consciousness of that part of the world. It may be, 
too, that some of his teaching, already a part of the 
western mind, will be sloughed off later. The whole 
matter is in flux. The foundation principle, however, 
for incorporating or rejecting any of his teaching is 
whether or not in the long run it would or would not 



138 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

make for social welfare. Much of it seems to con- 
tribute richly to that end; much of it has never yet 
been tried on any large scale. The real test is still to 
come. 

When, now, I have developed the ideal for my other 
students thus far, I have always suggested to them 
to look even farther afield. If they should ever find 
in the teaching of Brahman sage or Buddhist saint 
anything that seems to promise well for social wel- 
fare, that also might be included in their ideal. Still 
further, I have said to them that if they should make 
themselves acquainted with the teaching of Confucius, 
Mencius, Laotze, or others of your great leaders of 
thought, and should find there elements that appealed 
to them as likely to enrich the lives of men, they 
should also without any hesitation incorporate such 
material into their ideal, subject, of course, to such 
limitations as contradictions or a difference in geo- 
graphical location might impose. Whatever defi- 
nitely makes for social welfare, on the whole and in 
the long run, and wherever found among men, may 
properly be regarded as promising material for the 
content of the ethical ideal. 7 

7 In addition to the elements discussed here, there is, of 
course, the vast field of European thought from the time of 
Aristotle to the present. I have not attempted to deal with 
that here for lack of time allowed the original lecture. The 
method of constructing the ideal I regard as of. prime impor- 
tance. The points considered in the lecture are not in any 
sense restrictive; they are simply suggestive and illustrative. 



The Ethical Ideal 139 

Here, then, is the ideal toward which I have been 
working as our goal throughout this course. There 
is the formal side, as I presented it at our last meet- 
ing, and here are specific elements, or virtues, gleaned 
from some of the best sources. Does it, or would it 
work? This question we shall need to consider at 
the next hour, but just now I wish to present the 
matter, as I said, from your point of view as Chinese 
students. 

Here, as in the previous case, we need to give at- 
tention to both the physical and the spiritual sides. 
Is there anything that I said about the proper care 
of the body which you would be inclined to change? 
I feel very sure that you take the same attitude 
toward this matter that my students in the West do. 
Your athletic contests and the noble gymnasium 
nearing completion upon your campus make me con- 
fident that you would agree entirely with what I 
have said about proper attention to the physical 
foundation for your mental and spiritual develop- 
ment. So, too, with what I said about the instincts. 
You need to incorporate them into your ideal. This 
does not mean, of course, that you should let them 
run away with you. They constitute a part of the 
ideal as a whole, but always subject to rational con- 
trol. . When, however, I turn to the remainder of 
the content, I feel that you should proceed in a dif- 
ferent way. If I am not very much mistaken, you 
should begin with the teaching of your own great 



140 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

men. They have been accustomed to emphasize "filial 
piety," "benevolence," "the doctrine of the mean," 
"the golden rule," and so on. 8 These would seem to 
be good, but I would suggest that you should not 
incorporate them into your ideal simply upon the 
basis of tradition. Scrutinize them carefully. Often- 
times, a thing that is good, if over-emphasized, be- 
comes more or less harmful. None the less, as it 
seems to me, you should begin here. Then I would 
suggest that you look farther afield. Take the same 
list of virtues that I have discussed from Aristotle 
and decide whether any or all of them could find a 
place in your ideal. Then, too, turn to the Hebrews 
and to the teaching of the Nazarene and examine 
what you find with great care. Use the test which 
I have made fundamental, viz., social welfare. You 
may even go still farther in your quest. If anywhere 
within the limits of human history you find anything 
which seems to you to be good, or that you think 
would make for social welfare, then incorporate it, 
subject, as I have said, to the possibility of there 
being a contradiction, or that the geographical situa- 
tion would dictate otherwise. In this way, your ideal 
would approximate to the ideal which students in the 
western world not infrequently set before themselves. 
Last winter, when I decided to come here for this 
year, I reflected as to what I might make my chief 

8 Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. II, pp. 161-178; 
Moore, History of Religions, pp. 30-64. 



The Ethical Ideal 141 

emphasis, and I have just now given you the thought 
which I ultimately reached. It seems to me that you 
should avoid being swept clean out of your own orbit, 
in your effort to familiarize yourselves with western 
ideas and to incorporate western principles into your 
own lives. Begin with the best that you have here, 
but begin with it in a critical way. Then use the 
same critical method on western thought and cul- 
ture. Last summer, I had a conversation with a man 
in Washington, D. C, who has been in this part of 
the world a great deal, and I was glad to find him 
expressing himself in much the same way as I have 
just now. We were speaking with reference to Japan. 
He said that Japan has almost lost her national iden- 
tity in consequence of the avidity with which she has 
appropriated western thought and life. Some of 
them are sorry for this and they are trying at present 
to utilize more of their own earlier type of life. He 
said further that he hoped that the Chinese would 
not make the same mistake. That harmonized wholly 
with my own thought. You are Chinese with a long 
history behind you. Be Chinese, but in a critical 
way; appropriate from the West, but appropriate 
in a critical way. Dovetail the new into the old ; let 
the new and the old coalesce. It will be a slow 
process, but do not get discouraged. The richest 
results will come, if you use the proper method. 

The late Professor James of Harvard University 
brings out a vital distinction in the matter of memory 



142 Tsi7ig Hua Lectures on Ethics 

in his great work on "Psychology." He distinguishes 
between a "total recall" and a "focalized recall." 9 
When one tries to describe some event and seeks to 
include all, even the most trivial incidents, the re- 
sult will be a long drawn out, rambling account. If, 
however, one picks out the really salient points and 
combines them skilfully, there will be a unity and 
force to the account wholly lacking in the other 
kind. To remember, we must forget. I think that 
you will admit that the kind of ideal I have con- 
structed for you aims to be of the selective type. 
Do not take material simply upon the authority of 
this or that teacher, but estimate the value of the 
work critically. Put into your ideal the best you 
can find anywhere in the world, but begin with what 
has characterized your own people for so long a time. 
Do not misunderstand me. I am not arguing against 
the incorporation of western ideas into your ideal. 
Far from it. My presence here, and the presence 
of other American teachers, both point toward your 
appropriation of western thought. This college itself 
in a unique way aims at just this result. What I 
mean is that you should begin with your own culture, 
but subject to a rigorous criticism, and, further, the 
critical scrutiny which I suggest that you apply to 
the teaching of your own great men, I also urge that 
you apply to the teaching of the West. - 

I frequently like to think of the whole matter in 
9 Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 569-581. 



The Ethical Ideal 143 

an historical way. Fully five thousand years ago, 
your remote ancestors journeyed from the interior of 
Asia to the valley of the Yellow river and began the 
civilization which you know now. 10 At a somewhat 
later time and apparently not very remote from the 
same region, the early ancestors of the Indo-Euro- 
pean peoples, most of them, journeyed in a westerly 
direction to Europe and ultimately to America. 11 
During all these intervening centuries, there has been 
considerable intercourse between these two races, 
more, indeed, as some scholars think to-day, than was 
formerly believed. 12 But however extensive those 
past relations were, they were almost as nothing when 
compared with the situation to-day. The East and 
the West are meeting in this present age as never 
before in the history of the world. You are studying 
western civilization just as we of the West are study- 
ing eastern civilization. You find things that are 
good and no doubt things that are bad, just as we 
find things good in your civilization and some things 
that seem to be bad. Both you of the East and we of 
the West need to evaluate what we find in a critical, 
but friendly spirit. As I have told my other students 
in the West to study you and upon the basis of their 
study to incorporate into their own ideal whatever 

10 Moore, History of Religions, pp. 1-2. 

11 Cf. Breasted, Ancient Times; A History of the Early 
World, p. 171. 

12 Cf. Breasted, op. cit., pp. 438, 462; Robinson, History of 
Western Europe, p. 347. 



144 T sing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

good things they find, so I suggest to you to study 
the West in the same way and to incorporate into 
your ideal, based fundamentally upon your own civil- 
ization, whatever good you find. In this way, both 
the East and the West will come to see "eye to eye, 
and face to face." Our ideals will grow to be more 
and more alike, and we shall be able, both East and 
West, to join forces in friendly cooperation for the 
greater welfare of the world as a whole. 



VII 



THE REALIZATION OF THE IDEAL 

THE first lecture of this series was a kind of 
conjurer's hat, as perhaps some of you have al- 
ready inferred. I have been able to take a number of 
ideas from it and to develop them somewhat at length 
in the succeeding lectures, in much the same way 
that a conjurer takes many wonderful things from 
a high silk hat, and the reason, too, has been about 
the same. The sleight-of-hand performer takes out 
of the hat what he put there in the first place, and I 
have been able to develop these various ideas from 
the first lecture, because I put them in there original- 
ly with a view to their utility later in the series as a 
whole. You may recall that I characterized the open- 
ing lecture as a kind of guiding thread for the entire 
course, and it has been that in a very true sense 
throughout our various discussions. 

Now, among the other matters which I briefly 
called your attention to at that time and which I 
have developed more or less completely since, was the 
difference between a pure or theoretical science and 
an applied or practical science. I also suggested 

145 



146 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

that there is a similar difference between an ethical 
ideal and the realization of that ideal. An ideal, as 
I have been presenting it, is really a theoretical con- 
struct, a system of principles elicited in much the 
same way as the theoretical principles of any science, 
but if there were no practical application of those 
principles, our time would be wasted in the consider- 
ation of them. In the last two lectures, we dealt 
with the ideal on its more theoretical side, while 
to-day we have before us the problem of the realiza- 
tion of that ideal. This involves a consideration of 
the environment, both what we might call an ideal 
environment and the actual environment. Still fur- 
ther, within each of these there are physical and so- 
cial features to which we shall need to address our- 
selves in turn. 

I have hesitated not a little with reference to pre- 
senting even the suggestion of an ideal environment. 
There is so much of vagueness and uncertainty which 
lurks in the term at best, there is so little that is 
definite which we can command in our efforts to de- 
velop even the outlines of an ideal environment, and 
there is so little likelihood that any of us will ever 
live in the midst of wholly ideal conditions, that pos- 
sibly our time would be spent better in some other 
way. None the less, a few words in this connection 
seem to be necessary. 

And first, what might we say with reference to an 
ideal physical environment ? This much, at any rate. 



The Realization of the Ideal 147 

There is but the one world, that in which we are 
living, that constitutes the physical theater for our 
physical development. No matter what might or 
might not be true elsewhere in the universe, this par- 
ticular planet is the field of our operations. There 
are, however, differences in healthfulness and general 
suitability for our individual needs in different parts 
of the world. If we were wholly free to choose, and 
I am assuming ideal conditions, we would go to that 
part of the world which might happen to be the 
best for us to live in. This would apparently be lim- 
ited by the desire of others who might be cherishing 
the same ideal and who might wish to be in the same 
place. But, as we have already seen, people differ 
not a little, and the locality that might be best adapt- 
ed to the needs of one might not be suitable for 
another. Consequently, while there would still be 
some limitations imposed by reason of others seek- 
ing the same place as ourselves, we need not con- 
sider that difficulty further. The best part of the 
world, from an hygienic angle, so far as we indi- 
vidually are concerned, is what we would seek for 
ourselves, provided we were wholly free to choose. 
Beyond this, however, I do not care to go. Every 
other consideration would constitute a limitation and 
bring us face to face with the actual environment, 
and that we shall discuss later. Let us turn, next, 
to the social elements within such an assumed ideal 
environment. 



148 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

That there would be society of some sort, we can 
hardly question. Aristotle characterized man as a 
"social animal," and this has been assumed through- 
out the construction of the ideal. Then, too, I have 
laid emphasis upon altruism from the very beginning 
of our discussions, and social welfare has been the 
criterion for the admission of specific elements into 
the ideal. Outside of society altogether, off on some 
desert island, one could hardly expect to realize such 
an ideal as I have been developing. There would also 
be, very likely, family life. I have already indicated 
that the ideal takes the instincts up into itself, and 
one of these, as we saw early in this series, concerns 
the relations between the sexes. In no other way, it 
would seem, could such virtues as we have introduced 
into the ideal be realized to a greater degree than 
within the family circle. I have already spoken of 
the community as the unit of civilization, and in a 
very true sense we can regard the family as the 
unit of the community. There is a very vital rela- 
tion between these two. The character of the life 
within the family determines very largely what the 
life of the larger unit will be. The really difficult 
question here is as to the kind of family. 

When we survey social evolution, as historians and 
other students of society present it to us, we find 
two main types of the family. Of course there have 
been and are several other kinds, but these two stand 
out most prominently in the history of the race. 



The Realization of the Ideal 149 

These are the matriarchal, as it is called, and the 
patriarchal. 1 The former is a misnomer. While 
the term means "the rule of the mother," actually 
it designates that type of the family in which descent 
was reckoned on the mother's side. The rule, in so 
far as we might use that term at all, was in the hands 
of the mother's brothers and other male relatives. 
The general features of this kind of family were as 
follows: A woman, when she married, did not go to 
a new home which her husband had provided for her, 
nor did she go to his father's home. On the con- 
trary, she remained in her own old home. Her hus- 
band lived with her for a longer or shorter period 
and then went away, perhaps to return later, and 
perhaps not. The children were cared for by the 
mother and her male relatives. They took the moth- 
er's name, and property descended to them through 
their mother. 

There are not a few traces of this kind of family 
in literature and in customs surviving until the pres- 
ent day. In the German folklore, we often read of a 
gay young prince who leaves home to see the world. 
Sooner or later he meets a charming princess, and 
since they are mutually pleased, they marry, but 
live at her home. Not infrequently, the new hus- 
band succeeds his wife's father as ruler of that city 

1 Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, Preface and Introduction; Hob- 
house, Morals in Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. I, pp. 160-161; Gid- 
dings, Principles of Sociology, p. 94. 



150 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

or country. A suggestion of the same sort, too, 
comes to us from the literature of the Hebrews. Ja- 
cob went back to the land of Ur of the Chaldees to 
obtain a wife. In fact, he gained two, but he lived 
for many years at their father's home. This entire 
story represents a transition stage from the one main 
type to the other, but there is an unmistakable trace 
of the earlier type present in it. I also understand 
that there are some traces of the same sort here in 
China, while over in Japan the evidences are still 
more convincing. In Japan, as is well known, if 
there happens to be no son in the family, the parents 
try to induce some suitable young man to marry a 
daughter of the house, take her family name, and 
live at her home. In this way, the old family name 
will be preserved, and this seems to be the primary 
motive for the arrangement, but the suggestion of 
the matriarchal family may not be disregarded. 2 
Similar traces are to be found elsewhere in the world. 
This is, as I said, one of the great types of the fam- 
ily, reaching back through the barbarous stage of 
social development even to the period of savagery. 

The other type of the family, the patriarchal, is 
better known generally, and seems to have been fully 
developed before the dawn of history in a strict 
sense. As students of society tell us, the peoples 
who first emerged from barbarism and established a 
real civilization had the patriarchal type of the 
8 Hall, Things Japanese, 5th Ed., p. 312. 



The Realization of the Ideal 151 

family, and it has persisted, with some modifications, 
until the present day. 3 One of these modifications is 
the strict "pair-marriage," as the late Professor 
Sumner of Yale University termed it. 4 This seems 
to be the mode of the family among civilized peoples, 
to use a statistical form of expression. This term 
means the unit in any investigation which occurs 
most frequently. While there has been much ex- 
perimenting in this field in the past, and while there 
is not a little experimenting in our own day, beyond 
any question the "pair-marriage" has been and is 
the most frequent sort within civilized society, and 
we may not expect any very radical changes within 
the near future. I am not saying that this type is 
the absolutely best. It may be that what I have 
termed "experimenting" will yield some valuable new 
element or will result in the elimination of some fea- 
ture long cherished, but because of what we may 
call social inertia that form which has been the mode 
for so long a time will continue as the leading type 
rather indefinitely. 

Another problem, however, which we confront at 
this point is with reference to the children in such a 
family. We need to note that we are considering an 
ideal environment for the realization of such an ideal 
as I have been sketching during these several weeks. 
As I have said, there could hardly be a better environ- 

'Hobhouse, Morals m Evolution, 1st Ed., Pt. I, p. 178. 
* Folkways, pp. 375-376. 



152 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ment for the realization of such virtues as I dwelt 
upon at the last hour than the family, and I meant 
the complete family. This would be especially true 
in the case of the parents themselves who might prize 
such an ideal, and some of its essential features could 
be fairly well inculcated in the lives of the children 
even in their earliest years. Each rising generation, 
then, would be well prepared along altruistic and so- 
cial service lines to play a valuable part in the life 
of the community as a whole. But the vital question 
is with reference to the size of such a family. Stu- 
dents of society inform us that there should be three 
or four children, on the average, in each family, if 
the population is to be maintained and guaranteed 
a healthy growth. Many a family, however, has ten, 
twelve, or more children, while others have but one 
or two, or none. This minimum size of the family, 
if universal, would mean a diminishing population or 
the ultimate extinction of the community, while the 
larger number increases the economic burden almost 
beyond endurance and not infrequently is charac- 
terized by a consequent inferiority in quality. The 
ideal family, then, as the best environment for the 
realization of the ideal, would seem to be the one with 
the more nearly average number of children. 

At this point, however, we are confronted with the 
fact that some individuals apparently feel so keenly 
the call to social service that they neglect entirely to 
establish a home for themselves. The various monks 



The Realization of the Ideal 153 

and nuns of different religions in various parts of 
the world are of this sort. They forget, it would 
seem, that their plan enables them to minister only 
to their own generation. If they had developed an 
ideal family environment, they would be able to con- 
tribute as well to future generations. The actual con- 
ditions in America, to go no farther afield, are very 
instructive in this matter. One branch of the Church 
there permits its leading workers to establish homes 
for themselves. The number of prominent men and 
women who have developed from those homes is amaz- 
ing. There have been and are eminent jurists, phy- 
sicians, educators, literary men, and chief magis- 
trates who have contributed an incalculable amount 
of good to the life of the nation as a whole. These 
people came from homes which would never have 
existed, if the other, the single generation, policy had 
been followed. Their value in the total life of the 
country can not be fully estimated. 

Another k*hdred topic which we must notice in 
this connection is the childless home. Not infre- 
quently the home is established, but children do not 
appear to complete the ideal, and the reason would 
seem to be design. This introduces us to the prob- 
lem of "race suicide," as it is called. Of course, no 
precise rules may be laid down in such a matter, but 
an attitude of antagonism to the presence of chil- 
dren in the home would seem to be reprehensible. 
Every individual in the community enjoys to a cer- 



154 Tsing Hua Lectures out Ethics 

tain extent what others have toiled for and have 
risked life and health to obtain. Not to share in this 
labor, is to show one's self lacking in the sense of 
social responsibility. We may not say, as yet, what 
the final significance of life is, and since the race has 
progressed through much travail of mind and of 
body, but none the less has progressed, if the discus- 
sion in an earlier lecture was sound, it would seem 
as if the argument for a medium sized family of chil- 
dren is strong. In no other way can an ideal social 
environment for the realization of the ideal be se- 
cured. 

What other organizations there might be in such 
an environment as we are dealing with here, it is 
hard to say. Very likely there would be a state. At 
first blush it might seem that if all the individuals in 
the community should cherish the kind of ideal that I 
have been developing, there would be no need of a 
state. We have already seen that as people, become 
more highly civilized, the need of state interference 
in their daily mode of life diminishes. None the less, 
there are certain ends which individuals desire that 
can be obtained only through cooperation. We may 
not expect the state, therefore, to disappear alto- 
gether, but what its form would be we can not out- 
line With any great definiteness. There have been 
many ideal states sketched throughout the past, but 
no one of them has ever been realized in every detail. 
The most famous one, without doubt, was the state 



The Realization of the Ideal 155 

as conceived by Plato. The discussion at the be- 
ginning of his "Republic" is concerned with "right- 
eousness" or "justice." In none of the existing 
states, the argument runs, could a righteous life be 
lived, but if there ever should be a state, such as Plato 
then proceeded to outline, its inhabitants could live 
just and righteous lives. The problem, as presented 
in that discussion, was practically the same as that 
we are facing in this part of the lecture. But no 
such state as Plato conceived ever existed, and per- 
haps there never will be. To speculate about an ideal 
of that sort is undoubtedly interesting, but we can 
hardly grasp the conditions of existence sufficiently 
to guarantee any close correlation between the form 
of the state, as we think it, and its realization. We 
might, of course, select elements from the various 
states that have existed in the past, and from those 
that exist to-day, and make a fusion in accordance 
with the principle followed in constructing the 
ethical ideal, but we could not even then be sure that 
an environment so conceived would prove to be the 
best. Very naturally we would assume that such 
would be the case. This specific problem, however, 
belongs properly in the field of political science. 
None the less, this much may be said. Since I have 
laid emphasis upon the autonomous type of ethics, 
it would seem as if that kind of state which should 
allow the maximum of individual freedom and initi- 
ative would come closest to furnishing the desirable 



156 Ts'vng Hua Lectures on Ethics 

environment for the realization of our ideal, while 
any other form might prevent even the sketching of 
such an ideal. 

What other organizations an ideal environment 
might possess, it is very difficult to say. In many 
actual communities throughout the past there have 
been religious organizations, and there are not a few 
in many parts of the world to-day. Many of these 
are known as churches. Whether such institutions 
would be necessary in an ideal community, we can not 
say in an absolute sense, but judging from the past, 
which alone may guide us, we may assume that they 
would be present. Institutions of this sort, when 
viewed historically, have exhibited a decidedly con- 
servative character, and this has not been altogether 
without value. Every community, as I have indi- 
cated before, needs a conservative element in it, but 
if the members of a religious organization cherished 
individually the kind of ideal that I have been con- 
structing, the character of that organization, taken 
as a whole, would probably not be extremely con- 
servative. None the less, we should not assume that 
it would be necessarily excessively radical. The ra- 
tional element in our ideal would preclude that. Such 
a lack of conservatism, however, might not be the 
best thing for the community, unless some other 
agency within its limits should function as the neces- 
sary balance wheel. In the West, the law is generally 
rather conservative and might be a sufficient brake 



The Realization of the Ideal 157 

upon radical tendencies. At any rate, there would be 
little reason to lament, if religious organizations, as 
factors contributing to a presumably ideal environ- 
ment, should be somewhat less conservative than in 
the past. The deficiency would undoubtedly be made 
good in some other way. 

With reference to still other organizations in an 
ideal community, I do not care to take the time to 
speculate. That there would be not a few, I think 
entirely probable. In the analysis of a typical com- 
munity, presented in the third lecture of this series, 
we saw that there were many organizations, and I 
suspect that even in an ideal society most of them 
would be necessary, although they would be modi- 
fied not a little, if practically all the people cher- 
ished the ethical ideal which I have outlined. But 
further speculation would not be worth while. As I 
said in the first place, there is so much vagueness at- 
tending our thought when we try to determine the 
specific elements in an ideal environment, that we 
would better turn without more delay to a consider- 
ation of the actual environment within which alone 
we may hope to realize so much of the ideal as we 
shall ever know. 

Here, as in the preceding discussion, we must deal 
with the physical elements in the environment, and 
also with the social relations. When, then, we con- 
sider the physical side, we must ask ourselves to what 
extent it is favorable for our own physical well be- 



158 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ing. To neglect to make ourselves acquainted with 
the dangers that may lurk there is to fail in a proper 
valuation of human life. If, after investigation, we 
become convinced that our actual environment is not 
suited to our needs, then we should move. If it is im- 
possible for us to move, then we should seek to 
apply all the resources of science to improve the con- 
ditions. Almost any part of the world may be made 
habitable for men through the application of scien- 
tific research. One of the most striking examples of 
this is the Panama Canal zone. Before the United 
States Government undertook the construction of 
that waterway, that region was regarded as one of 
the most unhealthful in the world, but by the liberal 
use of scientific knowledge it has become noted for 
its healthfulness. By using all the resources of sci- 
ence, we may live in the vicinity of the North Pole, 
beneath the surface of the ocean in the submarine, 
or fly through the air on the aeroplane. Almost any 
part of the world becomes habitable in this way. If, 
however, it is impossible for us to make a full appli- 
cation of science to our particular environment, we 
must expect nature to work out her rather harsh 
laws in our case. Of course, we may be exceptions, in 
the sense that we were mistaken in our survey of the 
situation, and in spite of the apparent unsuitability 
of the region where we live, we may continue to a 
ripe old age, but the possibility of our being exempt 
should not warp our judgment and influence our ac- 



The Realization of the Ideal 159 

tion. It would be unethical for us to assume that 
attitude of mind. Not until we have rid the com- 
munity where we live of all flies, mosquitoes, other 
harmful insects, and dangerous vermin of whatever 
sorts, could we feel that we had fulfilled our whole 
duty. If such a program should be absolutely im- 
possible, then, and not till then, could we calmly let 
nature take her course. 

With regard to the social features of our actual 
environment, we may assume that there would be a 
home, but it might be maimed. Father or mother or 
both might be dead, and some of the influences which 
might otherwise have facilitated the growth of those 
virtues which we have incorporated into our ideal 
would be lacking. Under such circumstances, how- 
ever, a more intimate contact with the rest of society 
might be developed with perhaps an even more pro- 
nounced tendency toward social service. Or, again, 
the family might be broken through the action of 
the divorce court and the children be entrusted to 
one parent for all the time, or placed in charge of 
one parent for a part of the time, and of the other 
for the remainder of the time. Still again, the fam- 
ily might have come to honor within the community. 
The father or a brother might have done valiant serv- 
ice on the battlefield, or have lost his life in the de- 
fense of his country. In consequence of such dis- 
tinguished service not a little honor would attach to 
that family. This might breed pride and an over- 



160 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

valuation of one's importance instead of the modest 
estimate of one's self discussed at the last hour. Or, 
indeed, the reverse might be true. Some member of 
the family might commit a crime, and while in civil- 
ized lands we do not recognize the principle of col- 
lective responsibility, the social consciousness not 
infrequently burdens the culprit's family with not a 
little of his odium. Still further, the family might 
become rich overnight through some turn of For- 
tune's wheel, and in consequence relations become 
established which might not be favorable for the real- 
ization of the ideal in the form originally held, or, 
indeed, the reverse might be true in that the family, 
once in affluence, might be reduced to poverty and so 
be deprived of those associations which seemed to be 
essential factors for realizing the ideal. The state, 
too, in which one actually lives may not look with 
favor upon such a freely developing life, and one 
would, therefore, need to move to a more liberal com- 
munity, or else struggle to change the existing polit- 
ical conditions, or, again, effect some more or less 
satisfactory modus vivendi with the "powers that be." 
The same, too, might be true of one's religious life. 
These, of course, are only a few of the features 
which constitute actual elements in the environment 
where those, who might cherish an ideal of the kind 
that I have been developing, live. What are the pos- 
sibilities for ethical achievement within such limits? 
It is in connection with actual conditions more or 



The Realization of the Ideal 161 

less like these that there has developed at different 
times in the past what is technically known as casu- 
istry. I do not care to discuss this at present in a 
strictly technical way. A few points, however, need 
consideration. In general, we may say that when in 
any community certain principles have been evolved 
which are regarded as absolute, and then, somewhat 
later, other principles are developed which seem to 
have an equal absoluteness, or, indeed, the environ- 
ment has changed very decidedly, it becomes extreme- 
ly difficult to determine how those principles may be 
reconciled with one another, or to what extent one 
may still hope to realize the ideal already cherished 
for a long time. To make the matter somewhat more 
concrete, let us consider a few typical examples. 

A young man, we will say, in a country like the 
United States where the question of abstinence from 
alcoholic liquors is at the front, has advocated tem- 
perance and is known rather widely as a temperance 
worker. After the passage of a law against the liquor 
traffic in the town where he lives, the proprietor of 
the drug store in which he works decides to sell 
liquor quietly in violation of the law, and insists that 
this shall be a part of the young man's duties. We 
will assume, further, that the young man has a wife 
and several children to support. What should he 
do? Or, again, a member of the national legislature 
in some country where there is a liberal form of gov- 
ernment has a bill which he wishes to have passed. 



162 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

His constituents are anxious to have the measure 
become law, and if he does not succeed in getting it 
through, he probably will not be reelected. To get 
the measure passed, however, he must agree to vote 
for another bill which he regards as vicious. What 
should he do? Or, consider the situation here in 
your own country in connection with the warfare 
against the opium trade. A mandate, we will say, 
has been sent from Peking to the governor of a prov- 
ince to suppress entirely the cultivation of the poppy. 
When, however, he attempts to obey, his former 
friends and the violent element in the community 
threaten his life. What should he do? I was read- 
ing recently what one such official actually did. He 
sent a notice throughout his county, calling upon all 
to obey the law, and declared that he would make a 
tour of inspection in June and if any one should be 
found with poppies in his possession he would be 
severely punished. But this particular governor 
knew very well, when he sent out the notice, that the 
poppy crop would be gathered and disposed of before 
the month of June. 5 Yet again, we might assume 
that a woman has good reason for believing that her 
husband is untrue to her. She thinks of a divorce, 
but shrinks from the notoriety of a divorce suit. 
Then, too, there are her children. What should she 
do? These are but a few of the actual crises which 
B Ross, The Changing Chinese, p. 159. 



The Realization of the Ideal 163 

come in the lives of real human beings. How may the 
ideal be dealt with under such circumstances? 

The one suggestion which I wish to make is that 
on all occasions of stress we should think through the 
various aspects of our ideal anew. Much of our life 
goes on rather automatically, as many writers have 
pointed out. We make some great decision, or in- 
troduce some special element into our ideal, and then 
other lesser decisions or particular courses of con- 
duct follow naturally. But there come, not infre- 
quently, supreme crises which seem to tear every- 
thing up by the roots. There is our ideal, but over 
against it an actual situation which seems to make 
the ideal absolutely impossible of realization. What 
should we do then? On such occasions we should re- 
view our ideal with great care. It may be that some 
of the elements, introduced at an earlier time, are 
not so important as we at first thought. The abso- 
luteness of some of them may have diminished with 
the broadening and deepening of our experiences. 
We may find that some of the elements may properly 
be eliminated or modified, and that is precisely what 
the rational principle, introduced into the ideal in 
our formal treatment of it, would dictate. It might 
be, however, that after a very thorough examination 
of all the features of the ideal we should find it im- 
possible to make any modification. Under such cir- 
cumstances, we should have to stand firm, even though 
it might involve the sacrifice of life itself. But what- 



164 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

ever might be the result, a rigorous review of the 
ideal is the first essential step when we face a real 
crisis. Even though the outcome of our reflection 
should ultimately be judged wrong, we would have 
been right in our method. 

Oftentimes, however, there have been people who 
have been more rigid with themselves than this dis- 
cussion would imply. Unable to realize their ideal 
in its original fair proportions, because of changes 
in their circumstances, they have tended to beat their 
lives out in vain efforts to realize the unrealizable. 
Such a course is not in harmony with the rational ele- 
ment in the ideal, and it is also unethical through its 
lack of respect for life itself. Others under similar 
circumstances become discouraged and fail to realize 
the measure of success still open to them. A num- 
ber of years ago, I heard Professor Simmel at the 
University of Berlin say, "When difficulties multiply 
about you, enlarge your ego and so overcome." That 
is good advice within certain limits, but sometimes 
the difficulties are too great, and a modification of 
the ideal rather than the "will to victory" is the 
rational course. The late Professor James of Har- 
vard University gives an illustration in his little 
book on "The Will to Believe, etc.," which is in line 
with the advice of Professor Simmel. He suggests 
there the case of a man clambering over the moun- 
tains and ultimately reaching a ledge from which he 
can not return and beyond which he can not go be- 



The Realization of the Ideal 165 

cause of a yawning chasm which he did not notice at 
first. What should he do? James says that if the 
man should say to himself, "That is a terribly wide 
chasm. I never jumped so far in my life. I am sure 
that I can not clear it, but it is my only chance and 
I might as well try," it is very likely that he would 
plunge to the bottom. If, however, he should measure 
the distance carefully with his eye and say, "That is 
certainly rather wide, but I always was a good jump- 
er. I feel sure that I can clear it. It is my only 
chance but I think that I can make it," and then 
should gather himself for a great effort, the chances 
are that he would land on the other side. 6 Now this 
is an interesting illustration and the main truth em- 
phasized is good, but it is also true that if the chasm 
were really too wide, no matter how much a man 
might gird up his spirits with encouraging remarks, 
and even if he had the jumping ability of a kangaroo 
he could not clear the chasm. Under various difficult 
circumstances, then, as I have said, not a few peo- 
ple become absolutely discouraged and do not achieve 
what is still within their power. The ideal, as I have 
developed it, makes provision for such cases. There 
ought not to be any absolute discouragement. If 
certain elements in the ideal are no longer realizable, 
then emphasize other elements still within the limits 
of the ideal, or incorporate new elements and realize 
them to the extent possible. The best possible under 
6 P. 59. Not quoted verbatim. 



166 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

the circumstances would be a fair brief interpreta- 
tion of this ideal. 

This does not mean, as some might infer, that the 
ideal, as developed, is mere opportunism. It is, in- 
deed, somewhat opportunistic, but not unwarrant- 
ably so. An illustration from one of Emerson's es- 
says fits this case very well. 7 There we are told of a 
ship putting out to sea against a strong head wind. 
First in one direction it tacks and then in another, 
and the course seems exceedingly crooked. As the 
ship gets farther and farther away, however, the de- 
vious windings become less apparent and we become 
assured that the skipper is laying an approximately 
straight course for a definite goal. So when we re- 
interpret our ideal in a crisis and perhaps modify it, 
that does not mean complete opportunism. Far bet- 
ter to modify in this way and realize the modified 
form, than to realize nothing through complete dis- 
couragement or to waste one's life through attempt- 
ing the impossible. 

Not infrequently, too, the failure of one's individ- 
ual hopes and plans, or the perception of such failure 
in the case of others, has led to that interpretation 
of the world which we call pessimism. This means 
that the world we live in is the worst possible world, 
which is a judgment which runs far beyond the evi- 
dence. We do not possess the material for such an 
absolute statement as to the nature of the world, any 
7 Self -Reliance. 



The Realization of the Ideal 167 

more than we have the material to assert that it is 
the best possible world, which would be optimism. 
We may say, however, that the world is becoming 
better. When we applied the several tests for social 
progress in the fourth lecture of this course, we found 
sufficient warrant for believing in the reality of prog- 
ress. There has been both social and moral prog- 
ress. Such actual betterment, it is maintained, 
points toward meliorism, a world-view less ambitious 
than either of the other two, but more in accord with 
the facts. We may contribute toward such better- 
ment, as well as share in it, if we make proper use of 
the rational element in the ideal and modify it as the 
actual conditions seem to demand. If we find it im- 
possible to make any modification, we may actually 
realize less, or eliminate ourselves altogether from 
the field of human activities. 

Here, then, is the ethical ideal as I have developed 
it in the last two lectures. There is the formal as- 
pect expressed by the term "a reason-controlled life," 
and there are the various elements which we con- 
sider as possible content. Here, too, are some sug- 
gestions with reference to the realization of such an 
ideal within an assumed ideal environment and some 
of the difficulties we often face within our actual 
environment. As I said a few moments ago, a fair 
interpretation of it in its entirety is the best pos- 
sible under the circumstances. Difficulties should 
not lead to absolute discouragement, although they 



168 Tsmg Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

may necessitate a change in some of the elements, 
nor should changes in our environment result in our 
breaking under the strain. Revaluation and per- 
haps modification in accordance with our funda- 
mental rational principle should be our guiding 
thread. Thus interpreted, the ideal is capable of 
wide application and of a large, rich realization, al- 
though not always as we might have anticipated. 



VIII 

IMPLICATIONS AND RETROSPECT 

TO-DAY we come to the end of our discussions 
together, for which I suspect that some of you 
are profoundly thankful. And I do not know that 
I blame you very much. It has been necessary in the 
development of some of our topics to introduce ma- 
terial that was more or less unfamiliar to some of 
you, and to use methods of thought for which some 
of you, perhaps, are not yet quite ready. None the 
less, I feel sure that many of you, if not all, will 
sooner or later become very expert in just such mat- 
ters, and, indeed, will wrestle successfully with even 
more difficult and more abstruse subjects than these 
that I have tried to elucidate for you. If this should 
prove to be the case, and if, too, our work together 
should serve to prepare you somewhat for such men- 
tal activities, then our various discussions will not 
have been wholly in vain. 

In the second lecture of the course, we sought es- 
pecially the precise field of ethics, and, to aid us in 
our quest, we turned to the fields of philosophy and 
sociology to see what light those subjects might 

169 



170 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

throw upon our problem. In philosophy, we found 
that some writers bring all problems under four 
heads, and that one of these is designated "The 
Problem of Worth." Under this general topic, we 
found two sub-divisions, viz., ethics and religion. 
In the province of sociology, also, we found that all 
human activities may be put into four groups and 
that one of these groups provides for moral and re- 
ligious activities. Such an intimate association of 
these two subjects, when viewed by leading thinkers 
in these two fields, suggests a close and vital relation 
between them. The same suggestion, too, is evident 
in a couple of definitions which I have picked up at 
different times. In one of the earlier lectures, I re- 
ferred to Professor Hoffding of the University of 
Copenhagen and his grouping of philosophical prob- 
lems. He has also defined ethics as that which cre- 
ates values, while religion conserves those values, and 
the late Professor Pfleiderer of the University of Ber- 
lin has said in one of his publications that "Religion 
contains the ideal ground of morality, and morality 
the real manifestation of religion." 1 That there is, 
therefore, a close relation between these two fields, 
we may not doubt. Thus far, I have not 'dwelt upon 
religion, for our main concern has been with ethics as 
such, nor may I now give an exhaustive treatment of 

1 Hoffding, The Philosophy of Religion, Tr. Meyer, pp. 6, 
323, 374; Pfleiderer, Philosophy and Development of Religion, 
Vol. I, p. 66. 



Implications and Retrospect 171 

that subject, because of lack of time, if for no other 
reason. None the less, there are a few things that I 
wish to present so as to render our discussions as a 
whole somewhat more complete. 

When the topic of religion is introduced, people 
are apt to do either of two things. They may shrug 
their shoulders and turn their backs upon the mat- 
ter altogether, or they may become overearnest in 
their discussions. There is a saying in America that 
nothing will start a quarrel more quickly than to 
introduce the subject of politics or religion. I do 
not, however, care to quarrel with you. You are 
more numerous than I, and I am a stranger in a 
strange land, but there are a few things which grow 
rather naturally out of our various discussions dur- 
ing these several months, and which will add not a 
little, I suspect, to the value of our work as a whole. 
Still further, if we approach the subject in a scien- 
tific way, as I intend to, we shall keep cool enough, I 
think, to avoid any unpleasant features. 

In the first lecture of this series, I said that one of 
the initial steps toward any definite science is analy- 
sis, and if we apply analysis to what we ordinarily 
call religion, we generally find at least four main 
aspects. 2 There is, first, a more or less definite 
world-view which constitutes the background for all 
the other features. Secondly, there is an attempt 

"Cf. Westermarck, The Origin and Development of the 
Moral Ideas, Vol. II, p. 584. 



172 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

made to solve some of the most serious problems of 
life from the angle of that background, such prob- 
lems, indeed, as the origin of life and human destiny. 
Next, there is a greater or less manifestation of emo- 
tion, according to the temperament of the individual, 
in consequence of his satisfactory solution of his 
problems, and lastly, there are activities of one sort 
or another which the individual feels are expected 
from him by reason of the relation which he assumes 
exists between himself and his general world-view or 
background. This last point, of course, presents us 
at once with the field of ethics, and shows, too, how 
that subject is knit up with religion as a whole. 

I may not, as is quite obvious, deal with all these 
matters in this last lecture, nor has it been my desire 
to do so, but the first of these elements of religion, 
the background or world-view, suggests the line of 
thought that I especially wish to pursue. But when 
we speak of world-views and backgrounds, we find 
ourselves within the precincts of philosophy. 3 For 
a number of years, I have been accustomed to define 
philosophy as "the attempt to interpret one's experi- 
ences consistently," and I have frequently said, too, 
that "religion is an attempt to interpret one's ex- 
periences," but, historically, there has been less em- 
phasis on consistency in this latter field. This for- 
8 Since delivering these lectures, I have read Cornf ord's From 
Religion to Philosophy and have found myself in general 
agreement with his main thesis, although his detailed analysis 
was, of course, new to me. 



Implications and Retrospect 173 

mula, however, as is quite evident, applies particu- 
larly to the background. Still further, in dealing 
with this aspect of the subject, we shall find the same 
opposition between the individual consciousness and 
the social consciousness that I have already dwelt 
upon in connection with ethics. This will afford ad- 
ditional evidence of a close relation between religion 
as a whole and ethics, which alone gives us warrant 
for dealing with this subject at all in this series of 
lectures. 

When we try to envisage a primitive community, 
we generally find that it was a comparatively homo- 
geneous group, as I have suggested in another con- 
nection earlier in this course, and, usually, there 
was about the same interpretation of the world en- 
tertained by all in the group. Such a general view 
of the world, which was, of course, rather nebulous, 
constituted the background for the religious life of 
the people, in so far as they could be said to have a 
religion at all, and the serious problems of that com- 
munity were solved with reference to it. Sooner or 
later, however, a different interpretation originated 
in the mind of some member of the group, and, if the 
new view were not so extremely different from the 
old that its originator would be expelled from the 
community, the opposition between the new and the 
old would gradually become less pronounced, until 
ultimately there would be more or less of a coales- 
cence of the old and new into an old-new or new-old 



174 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

world-view which would thus be a substitute back- 
ground for the religious life of the entire community. 4 
Still later, some other new view might be developed 
and pass through a similar process of modification 
to coalescence with the modified old view, and thus 
become a new substitute background for the slowly 
developing religious life of the community. And such 
a process as this, all too hastily sketched, has gone 
on in various communities throughout the world and 
in various periods of the world's history. 

Perhaps the best illustrations of this process are 
to be found in the changing conditions among the 
Greeks and in the variations evident throughout Eu- 
ropean history. In the early days among the Greeks, 
with which you are all more or less familiar, there 

4 The tendency of many writers to stress the oneness of 
thought and feeling in a primitive community I can not al- 
together accept. If we apply the principle of the Normal 
Curve to any early group, we would expect a half or more 
representing the majority view, but a quarter or less looking 
backward to what had been approved at an earlier time, while 
another quarter or less would be at least open-minded, to use 
a modern phrase, toward things that were new. The probable 
physiological development of the individuals in such a com- 
munity would point toward this conclusion. It is highly im- 
probable that there were no dull, sluggish, more or less ape-like 
individuals in the primitive community, and equally improb- 
able that there were none who varied physiologically, and in 
particular neurologically, in the direction of a higher type. 
This principle is being applied to school children to-day with 
surprisingly rich results. We should not fail to use it in our 
attempt to understand primitive society. Cf. the references 
indicating variation on page 67. 



Implications and Retrospect 175 

were the gods who were assumed to live on Mt. 
Olympus, and the Greeks' thought with reference to 
them was knit up with a particular interpretation 
of the world. As the centuries passed, however, the 
views entertained with reference to the world and the 
deities changed very considerably. ^Eschylus, we 
find, maintained that the supreme deity no longer 
lived on Olympus. In this poet's thought, deity had 
grown until he was conceived of as ruling the entire 
world. 5 Indeed, the deity filled the heaven of heav- 
ens and merely allowed himself to be called Zeus. 
Still later, there were the wide-ranging views of Plato 
and Aristotle, who first developed the conception of 
an immaterial deity. 6 There was a vast difference 
between the earlier and the later views, but the old 
views entertained by the early religionists became 
modified somewhat, while the later philosophic 
thought made at least some provision for the earlier 
religious life. Later still, the world-view known as 
neo-Platonism, which developed in the third and 
fourth centuries A. D., took up into itself most of 
the best elements worked out by the earlier Greeks 
and gradually became the background or framework 
for the religion which gained the dominance in the 
European world. Still further, in the period of the 
Renaissance and in so-called modern times, there have 
been many new world-views developed which have been 

6 Botsford, A History of Greece, p. 160. 
8 Moore, History of Religions, p. 501. 



176 Tsvtig Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

used by their authors, or by others more interested in 
this phase of the problem, as substitutes for the older 
background of the religious life. And at the present 
day, there is not a little confusion of thought in con- 
sequence of the variety of world-views and the modi- 
fications taking place, which aim, at least some of 
them do, at securing a consistent background for the 
religious life. But I must not follow out this line of 
thought any farther. 

It must be evident to all, however, that the con- 
ception of deity, as already hinted, is closely bound 
up with a world-view. Here, too, throughout the 
past, there has been a great variety of thinking, and 
not a little opposition, too, has been evident between 
the individual consciousness and the social conscious- 
ness. Generally, in this field, men's minds have tend- 
ed in two opposite directions. They have either 
thought of deity in a very general way, as widely ex- 
tended, pure being, unlimited, eternal, all powerful, 
vast, filling the entire world, and in various other 
similar ways, or they have tended to particularize 
him and to conceive of him under the form of man. 
In primitive times, this was very frequent and has 
come to be known as anthropomorphism, i.e., con- 
ceiving deity according to human form. This ten- 
dency, however, has not been confined to the earliest 
times, nor to any one part of the world, for we find 
it among the Greeks, among the Jews, among the 
Buddhists, and even here among yourselves. In fact, 



Implications and Retrospect 177 

you have both tendencies in evidence here. Your 
great deity is Heaven, stretching far and wide, 
sometimes regarded in an impersonal way and some- 
times in a personal way. But it was also customary 
in the days of the Empire to conceive of each emperor 
of the reigning dynasty as taking a place beside 
Heaven and Earth when they had ceased to rule here. 
Still further, no longer ago than in 1906, you ele- 
vated your great ethical teacher, Confucius, to a 
place of equality with Heaven and Earth. 7 Here, 
then, you have both of these tendencies illustrated 
in connection with your own State religion. I may 
add, too, that this particularizing tendency comes 
closest to our work in the field of ethics. 

But let us view the matter from yet another angle. 
Not infrequently in the past there has been a great 
deal of emphasis within religious circles upon the 
knowledge which the various worshipers possessed 
of deity. "We know, we know," has been the oft- 
recurring burden of their thought. Sometimes, in- 
deed, it would seem as if they felt that they had de- 
scribed a circle about their deity and consequently 
knew him through and through. Far better is it, as 
it seems to me, to use the figure of the parabola. 
This curve sweeps down from the infinite stretches 
of space, and then sweeps away again into equally 
unknown regions. Only a part of this curve comes 
within the range of our experience. We know deity 

1 Moore, History of Religions, pp. 22-24. 



178 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

in part, perhaps we may say, but there is a great 
deal more that is beyond our ken. Or, to put the 
thought in still another form, we might say that men 
have been accustomed to put into their concept of 
deity the best that has been worked out in human 
life, and they still do the same thing, but whereas in 
the past that concept has all too frequently been as- 
sumed to be complete, we would do better to-day to 
make provision for a plus something, which the later, 
fuller experiences of the race might more nearly de- 
termine. 

I suspect, however, that at this point some of you 
notice a similarity between what I have just said 
about the nature of a concept of deity and what I 
have said previously about the character of an ethi- 
cal ideal. In our earlier work, I said that we form 
our ethical ideal by putting into our mental con- 
struct the various elements which make for social 
welfare, and here I have indicated that our concept 
of deity consists of the best wrought out in human 
life. These two statements mean practically the 
same on the content side, for what is most useful to 
social welfare may well be considered as the best 
kinds of activities that have been developed through- 
out the past. Possibly you say that this likeness is 
due to the fact that the same thinker has been busy 
with both fields of thought. This may be a sufficient 
explanation, but I am inclined to think that there is 
something more vital involved. But be that as it 



Implications and Retrospect 179 

may, another problem with reference to deity con- 
fronts us immediately, viz., as to whether there is 
any reality corresponding to the concept of deity, be 
that concept never more perfect than you or I might 
construct it. Among the ancient Greeks, there was 
the idea of a mermaid, which implied a creature with 
the head and face of a human being, but the body of 
a fish. They also easily conceived of a centaur 
which meant a creature with the body of a horse, but 
the head and shoulders of a man. But was there a 
real creature corresponding, actually existing in the 
external world? This, in its main features, is the 
problem with which the philosopher of Konigsberg, 
Immanuel Kant, wrestled long and valiantly. I may 
not take you into all the mazes of his thought, but 
one or two of his conclusions are right in point. 

Kant maintained that we never obtain any knowl- 
edge of Deity, and he was able to convince himself 
of the truth of this position by reason of his very 
precise definition of knowledge. None the less, he 
said that there are multitudes of people who are 
ready to stake their lives upon the reality of God's 
existence, and this, he declared, is far better than 
mere knowledge. Again he said, "I may not say that 
it is morally certain that God exists," but "I may 
say that I am morally certain that God exists." 8 
These two statements, at first glance, do not seem 
very far apart, but upon careful analysis we find 
8 Critique of Pure Reason, Tr. Miiller, p. 665. 




180 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

that they are fundamentally different. There is a 
difference here like that which I pointed out in an 
earlier lecture between inductive and deductive think- 
ing. As I indicated then, inductive thinking yields 
varying degrees of subjective assurance, while deduc- 
tive gives an apparent absoluteness or finality to our 
thought. So with the philosopher Kant, in the state- 
ments just quoted, there is an evident leaning toward 
induction. To assert that God exists is to imply a 
demonstration, which Kant had previously shown 
was impossible, but he felt that he might claim a cer- 
tain amount of subjective assurance with reference to 
such existence. 

But let us go a step farther with the problem. 
Could Deity be less than humanity? What I mean 
is this: Could there be a real Deity for the human 
race who lacked such qualities as the race has slowly 
wrought out and has come to cherish? Just to raise 
the question is sufficient to elicit a denial. It might 
be argued, however, that Deity is so far on beyond 
humanity, has such superlative and transcendent 
qualities and virtues in Himself that the best wrought 
out in the history of the race is as nothing in com- 
parison. The great leader of the Roman Church, 
Augustine, was wont to say that "all the virtues of 
the heathen are but splendid vices." In the same 
way we might assume that Deity is so superior to 
humanity, so different, that the best concept which 
the human mind can construct upon the basis of race 



Implications and Retrospect 181 

experience is totally inadequate. But again I raise 
the question, Could a Being of such a sort be Deity 
for the human race? Not infrequently in philosoph- 
ical circles men argue as to whether we could ever 
know another world or universe which had no rela- 
tion whatever to the one in which we live. 9 The con- 
clusion reached has generally been a negative one. In 
the same way I maintain that a Deity to be such for 
humanity must have in Himself the qualities and vir- 
tues men have developed and have come to value, no 
matter what additional attributes, to fill out the 
plus something, He might also possess. 

But what is the upshot of such a discussion? Just 
this. I have indicated that there is a close relation 
between the ethical ideal which we form for our- 
selves and our concept of Deity, and if the discus- 
sion which I have just presented has any real force, 
and I think that it has, then whether we take the po- 
sition of the religious man and seek to realize in our- 
selves such qualities as we conceive of in Deity, or 
whether we confine our attention to the ethical ideal, 
as some are inclined to do, and realize that to the 
fullest extent, we shall in either case be realizing 
Deity, and the only kind of Deity, too, that could be 
such for us. More than this, I have no time for at 
present. 

Another rather important line of thought for us 
to consider in this connection is concerned with the 

•Cf. Marvin, An Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 270, 410. 



188 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethic t 

conservation of values. I quoted, earlier in the hour, 
from Hoffding to the effect that ethics creates values, 
while religion conserves those values, and the question 
naturally arises as to how completely values may be 
conserved. 

There is the ideal with which we have been deal- 
ing during these several weeks, and there is the prob- 
lem of realizing it as I discussed the matter at the 
last hour. But even though we might realize the ideal 
rather fully, how much of a permanent possession is 
it likely to be? Will the conservation of its values 
coincide simply with the span of our brief lifetime? 
In answer to such a question it is sometimes said that 
the values wrought out by one generation will be 
taken up by the next and so on indefinitely. We may 
believe, therefore, in a kind of race immortality, as 
it is called. But what about the conservation or 
preservation of values, in case our entire solar sys- 
tem should be resolved back into its original form? 
At this point, we touch again the problem of cos- 
mic values to which I called your attention several 
weeks ago. If when the entire cycle, as it is called, is 
complete, there should be nothing left over, nothing 
permanent as a result, what could we say about 
the value of the entire process ? Obviously, I can not 
deal with this problem adequately at this time. There 
are, however, two lines of argument that I wish to 
present briefly. 



Implications and Retrospect 183 

We may approach this problem from the angle of 
some of the most recent results in the field of phys- 
ical-chemistry. Let us assume for the moment, if you 
will, that there was an original cosmic energy, which 
we will not try to define very rigidly, and let us as- 
sume, further, that there was a kind of differentiation 
or variation taking place in it. One of the results 
of that variation we will call matter, as that term is 
generally used, and we will say that another varia- 
tion is what we ordinarily call organic matter. That 
there is a difference between these two is very evident, 
but what that difference is we may not say with cer- 
tainty at present. Still further, let us assume that 
the life cycle of any bit of the organic matter re- 
sults in the freeing of what we might call a finer 
energy from its contact with its coarser accompani- 
ment. What remains is merely matter, and that, ac- 
cording to very recent physical discoveries, may per- 
haps be resolved back into the original coarse energy 
to undergo the process of variation again, to become 
organic matter and the finer energy be freed again, 
and so on, until we may at least think of the entire 
original coarse energy being completely transformed 
into the finer energy. 10 There are difficulties with 
such a view, but I may not deal with them now. 

"For a view which has some elements in common with this 
which I have sketched, Cf. Bixby, After Death— What? in 
Harper's Magazine, Vol. CXXVIII, p. 945. 



184 Tsing Hua Lectures on Ethics 

There is, also, a likeness between this view and one 
worked out by the philosopher Schelling about a cen- 
tury ago. 

According to Schelling, the great task that any 
philosopher faces is this : If he should start with the 
assumption that there was at first nothing but mat- 
ter in the universe, how could he explain the presence 
of spirit later? Or, if he should begin with the view 
that originally there was nothing but spirit, how 
could he explain the existence of matter at a later 
time more or less closely correlated with it? Schil- 
ling's own solution of the puzzle was to assume that 
originally there was only slumbering spirit, not real 
matter and not real spirit, but that gradually this al- 
most nameless something began to awake, and it is 
awake to the extent that the race is conscious to-day, 
and the goal of the process is for the entire universe 
to become awake. There would, therefore, no longer 
be even the semblance of matter in the universe, but 
all would be spirit. 11 Now, as I said, there are de- 
cided resemblances between this outline of Schelling's 
thought and the other view that I have so briefly 
sketched, but in that sketch I have tried to keep 
close to some of the newer, but apparently assured 
results of scientific investigations. I may not, how- 

11 Rand, Modern Classical Philosophers, pp. 536-537, 544, 
560; Cf. Hdffding, History of Modern Philosophy, Vol. II, pp. 
165-166. 



Implications and Retrospect 185 

ever, dwell longer upon this suggestive treatment of 
our problem. 

The other suggestion that I wish to give grows 
out of the problem of the rationality of the universe. 
If there be no conservation of values in this broad 
sense which we are now considering, then it would 
seem as if the universe were irrational at the core, but 
as a matter of fact the universe does not seem to be 
wholly irrational. It is good logic to say that the 
universe is either rational or irrational, and if the 
universe, in its inmost nature, were irrational, what 
could you and I do about it? Yesterday might be 
the day after to-morrow, or the North Pole might be 
parallel with the Equator, or various other absurdi- 
ties might be true. But within the limits of our ex- 
perience the universe does not seem to be entirely ir- 
rational. 

We must consider at this point, however, the vari- 
ous meanings of the term rational. There are at 
least three which we can distinguish. 12 Rational may 
signify an ordered whole. When we look out upon 
the world, we find not a little that is suggestive of 
a cosmos rather than a chaos. The scientist assumes 
that this is true throughout, although this assump- 
tion runs far beyond our actual experience. It is a 
bit of scientific faith that is often referred to. But 
within the limits of our experience there certainly 

13 Cf. Cooley, The Principles of Science, pp. 203-217. 



186 Tsing Hwa Lectures on Ethics 

seems to be a real order. One of the best illustra- 
tions of this is furnished by the discovery of the 
planet Neptune. In 1845 and 1846 respectively, the 
astronomer Adams, an Englishman, and Leverrier, a 
Frenchman, reached the conclusion independently 
that the irregularities in the movements of the planet 
Uranus could not be explained except upon the hy- 
pothesis that there was another planet belonging to 
the system which no one had ever yet seen. 13 Upon 
the basis of nice mathematical calculations, they then 
turned their telescopes toward a certain part of the 
heavens and found the new planet. And not merely 
once did they find it, which might have been an acci- 
dent, but again and again, and they also instructed 
others how to find it. Certainly there would seem to 
be order in this part of the universe at least. 

But rational may also mean the possession of 
reasoning powers. We may not be quite so am- 
bitious as the ancients were who assumed a kind of 
reason which they thought permeated the entire 
universe and of which each individual possessed a 
portion, but we may say that there is reason of a 
certain sort in the universe, since we ourselves are a 
part of the universe and we do reason at least a little 
sometimes. To that extent, beyond any question, the 
universe is rational. 

Still another interpretation of this term, when ap- 
plied to the universe, is that there is meaning of some 
"Newcomb, Popular Astronomy, pp. 367-368. 



Implications and Retrospect 187 

sort in the universe rtiUu^, i»* . udM .mats of our 

experience, and this leads us to expect other mean- 
ings which are at present beyond our experience. 
This significance lies very near the first one. The 
scientist regards the universe as a fairly consistent 
series of coexistences and sequences. When we say 
that the universe is rational in the sense of an or- 
dered whole, it is more the static, the coexistential 
aspect that is at the front, but when we say that it 
has meaning, it is more the dynamic, the sequential 
aspect with which we have to deal. There are hap- 
penings of many sorts, and from our observation of 
them we gather their meaning, that is, we understand 
within certain limits why they have occurred as they 
have and what results to expect. 

Now the assumption of rationality in this last 
sense has been rather general in the race. Suppose 
every single individual in the primitive world had 
gone on the assumption that there was no meaning 
in the world. Is it likely that such an attitude of 
mind would have yielded the accumulation of knowl- 
edge which we possess to-day? If every individual 
from the earliest times to the present had actually 
thought that no explanation of events could possibly 
be given, from what source could knowledge have 
come? Of course, there might have been some acci- 
dental meanings obtained, as undoubtedly there were, 
but even these would have been of but little value to 
people who positively discounted any large, rich 



188 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

meaning in the world by their general attitude. One 
of the best cases in point is that of the so-called Skep- 
tics among the Greeks. They maintained that it is ab- 
solutely impossible to obtain any knowledge of the 
world, and one of the clearest evidences of their 
skepticism is their failure to make any addition to 
the store of human knowledge. Why should they have 
added anything, when they assumed that knowledge 
was impossible? The best refutation of their skep- 
ticism, however, is the vast accumulation of what we 
call knowledge from their day until the present. 

Here, then, are the several connotations of the 
term rational, and it is this last one which is most 
important for our particular discussion. It is this 
one, too, which presents us with two alternative po- 
sitions. It may be that values do not persist beyond 
the limits of an individual's own lifetime, or if they 
persist in the race, then not beyond the dissolution 
of our solar system. This would seem to make the 
universe irrational, in the sense of having no real 
meaning, in spite of a superficial rationality. But 
the accumulation of meanings which the centuries 
have brought makes it difficult to accept such a 
reductio ad abswdwm. The growing volume of 
meanings would seem to point toward still other 
richer meanings, indeed, toward a universe full of 
meaning rather than toward a meaningless one. The 
former position tends to cut the nerve of hope and 
to paralyze all effort, while the latter is more of a 



Implications and Retrospect 189 

live wire. To assume that there is no meaning natur- 
ally results in our finding none, while to assume that 
there is meaning, even though we may not know what 
the meaning is, nerves us to supreme effort. On the 
one hand, we would stand facing a blank wall, while 
on the other we would find ourselves aligned with the 
race as it has struggled and achieved. I may not, 
however, dwell longer upon these themes. 



At this point, I wish to give a brief resume of our 
course as a whole. Several years ago, I heard of a 
rather prominent man who gave a lecture before a 
thousand or fifteen hundred young women in one of 
the large women's colleges in America. At the end of 
his address, as the story goes, he began and gave the 
entire lecture over again, evidently fascinated by his 
audience. I do not know that I could blame him very 
much, nor do I hesitate to admit that I, too, have 
been more or less fascinated by my audience here. 
But let me hasten to dispel any apprehensions you 
may feel. I do not intend to repeat the entire course 
in the few minutes that remain. It is quite obvious 
that that would be impossible. None the less, I do 
want to bring together into immediate relation some 
of the most important points which I have been de- 
veloping, so that you may have a kind of bird's-eye 
view of the entire series. 

In the first lecture, when we were getting somewhat 



190 Tsmg Hua Lectures on Ethics 

acquainted with one another, I called your attention 
to the distinction between autonomous and heteron- 
omous ethics and said that my chief emphasis would 
be upon the former, and I think that I have fairly 
well fulfilled my promise. We also saw in the same 
lecture somewhat of the nature of science, and I in- 
dicated that the type of ethics that I was planning 
to present would have much in common with the sci- 
entific spirit at least. Furthermore, I suggested that 
I intended to make use of material from the fields 
of both philosophy and sociology. In the second 
lecture, we sought the precise field of ethics and 
found that fundamentally the subject is concerned 
with altruistic activities. I also gave a definition of 
ethics to the effect that it deals with those activities 
which are consciously directed toward social welfare. 
We saw, too, that the motive of conduct must be 
considered, if we are to remain true to the historical 
development of the subject. We then passed to a 
consideration in the third lecture of twofold moral- 
ity. To appreciate this, it became necessary to 
analyze a community of four or five thousand peo- 
ple, and to consider, also, the opposition between the 
individual consciousness and the social consciousness. 
WTien this preliminary work was completed, it be- 
came evident that the topic referred to the older, 
more traditional morality in a community, and a 
newer sort due to the reflection of some individual or 
small group of individuals within the larger whole. 



Implications and Retrospect 191 

Such a divergence from the accepted views always in- 
volves an element of danger, but not infrequently 
those who take the step become pioneers in the field 
of morality. In the fourth lecture, we gave atten- 
tion to the problem of progress. This, we saw, was 
threefold. There was cosmic progress, which we 
only glanced at, and social and moral progress. In 
social progress, we learned that we might use com- 
plexity as a test of higher in contrast with lower 
planes of civilization, just as the biologist uses such 
a test in his special field. Then, too, the growing 
valuation of human life and social control we found 
constitute especially important criteria. As to moral 
progress, we saw that practically every step toward 
what we call social progress was originally a moral 
issue, and that we have there but a further illustra- 
tion of the opposition between the individual con- 
sciousness and the social consciousness. 

When we had gained such a survey of the field as 
these lectures afforded, we passed, in the fifth and 
sixth, to a consideration of the ethical ideal as such, 
first on its formal side, and then in regard to its 
content. We dealt, somewhat in detail, with the three 
great ideals of the Greeks. There was the ideal of a 
life of pleasure on the one hand and a life of reason 
set over against it. The middle course of a reason- 
controlled life, developed by Plato and Aristotle, 
seemed by far the best. This seemed to receive con- 
firmation, also, from the sociologist's emphasis upon 



198 Ts'vng Hua Lectures on Ethics 

the rationally conscientious life. With reference 
to the content of the ideal, I suggested such a list of 
virtues as we get from Aristotle, the teaching of the 
Hebrews, the reflections of the Indian sages, and 
the moral precepts of your own great men, but 
all elements, I insisted, were to be tested by the prin- 
ciple of the social welfare on the whole and in the 
long run. Then in the lecture at the last hour, we 
considered the realization of the ideal, and saw some 
of the vagueness that attaches to the thought of an 
ideal environment and some of the difficulties which 
might interfere with our program in our actual en- 
vironment. None the less, we should not permit our- 
selves to become discouraged overmuch, since, as I 
indicated, the best possible under the circumstances 
would be a fair estimate of what the ideal demands 
from us. Finally, in the first part of the hour to- 
day, I have tried, all too briefly, to indicate some of 
the larger reaches of thought which our various dis- 
cussions imply. Science holds itself within rather 
narrow limits, and ethics, as a science, also remains 
within fairly determinable boundaries, but just as 
other sciences lead out into the wider fields of phil- 
osophy and metaphysics, so ethics has far-reaching 
implications. To deal with these adequately, how- 
ever, would require much more time than we have at 
our disposal, and the body of thought would consti- 
tute an altogether different kind of course. 

And now we are through. I wish, however, to ex- 



Implications and Retrospect 193 

press to you my appreciation of your good at- 
tendance, which, as I understand, was required, and 
to say that I hope that some of the discussions may 
linger with you for many a day, and be of real ser- 
vice to you in your individual lives. 



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